2\ 


21 


/t/<* 


/ 


<^C 


LIBRARY 


UN 


IVERSITY  OF  CALIFOF     IA. 

Received..— 


£-^6<£Z 


__i 


■8^/ 


Accessions  No.  .4^/Jjk#     Shelf  No. _. 


</* 


-8s> 


'oM'>&3r:..  ':fzm&lti>j& 


wmmm 


Christian   Morals 


A  Series  of  Lectures 


BY 


ANDREW  P.  PEABODY,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

EMERITUS   PROFESSOR   OF  CHRISTIAN   MORALS 
IN   HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 


'ufllVEftSITYJ 


BOSTON 

LEE   AND   SHEPARD,   PUBLISHERS 

No.  10  Milk  Street 

1887 


B7 
T 


BY  THE  AUTHOR   OF  THIS    VOLUME 


MANUAL  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 


A  TEXT-BOOK  FOR  COLLEGES  AND  HIGH  SCHOOLS 

225  pp.     i2mo.     Half  leather.     Price  #1.25 


A.  S.  BARNES  &  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK  AND  CHICAGO 

//^t/60 

The  Manual  of  Moral  Philosophy,  by  Tro- 

fessor  Peahody,  is  quite  largely  used  as  a  text-book;  and 
his  new  book,  Christian  MORALS  :  A  Series  of  Lec- 
tures, has  been  prepared  as  a  treatise  of  a  more  advanced 
character. 

Those  who  use  the  "Manual"  might  like  to  know  what 
the  authoY  has  to  say  on  a  much  wider  range  of  subjects ; 
while  readers  of  the  ""Christian  Morals"  might  be  willing  to 
adopt  as  a  class-book  a  book  adapted  specially  and  solely 
for  class  use,  by  the  same  author. 

The  volumes  are  totally  unlike.  Christian  Morals 
had  for  its  first  title  Moral  Philosophy,  and  the  change  of 
title  has  been  made  to  prevent  confusion. 


Copyright,  1887,  by  Lee  and  Shepard* 


*• 

* 

♦> 


PREFACE. 


In  the  preparation  of  these  Lectures  I  have  had 
three  purposes  in  view.  First,  I  have  designed  to 
present  with  scientific  accuracy,  yet  in  a  popular 
form,  the  fundamental  principles  of  Moral  Philosophy. 
Secondly,  I  have  sought  to  show  its  inseparable  alli- 
ance, at  every  point,  with  religion,  and  especially  with 
Christianity,  which  I  regard,  not  as  having  had  its  birth 
midway  in  human  history,  but  as  Truth  and  Right, 
co-eternal  with  God,  and  revealed  and  manifested  by 
and  in  Jesus  Christ.  Thirdly,  I  have  wished  to  illus- 
trate the  principles  of  ethical  science,  as  they  are 
developed  in  its  own  and  in  human  history,  as  they 
are  involved  in  questions  and  subjects  of  current  or 
recent  interest,  and  as  they  are  applicable  to  the  con- 
cerns of  daily  life.  These  three  aims  have  been  so 
constantly  united  in  my  habits  of  thinking  and  teach- 
ing, that,  with  me,  they  are  virtually  one :  it  remains 
to  be  seen  whether  I  shall  have  made  them  one  to  my 

readers. 

ANDREW  P.   PEABODY. 

Cambridge,  Jan.  1, 1887. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/christianmoralssOOpeabrich 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE 

I.   Human  Freedom 


II.  The  Ground  of  .Rj^ht 28 

III.  Utilitarianism  and  Expediency     ...  55 

IV.  Conscience 82 

V.  Virtue  and  the  Virtues 109 

VI.  Principles,  Rules,  and  Habits       .        .       .  136 

VII.  Ethics  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures        .        .  104 

VIII.  Christian  Ethics 192 

IX.  Moral  Beauty 220 

X.  Hedonism 249 

XI.   The  Ethics  of  the  Stoic  School    .        .       .278 
XII.  The   Influence   of    Christian    Ethics     on 

Roman  Law 305 


PAGE 
1 


'   o?  TIP!    ' 


WVE&SIT7J 
MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


LECTURE  I. 

HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

In  commencing  a  course  of  lectures  on  moral 
philosophy,  there  is  a  preliminary  question,  —  Is 
there  such  a  science?  Is  there  any  essential  dif- 
ference between  human  acts  and  the  changes  that 
occur  in  the  material  world,  —  between  the  work- 
ings of  a  genial  Christian  life  and  those  of  a  vernal 
breeze  or  of  fructifying  sunbeams,  —  between  a 
Nero  or  a  Borgia  and  a  tornado  or  an  earthquake  ? 
Can  man  do  or  have  done  otherwise  than  he  does 
or  has  done  ?  It  is  maintained  by  some  philoso- 
phers that  the  human  will  is  not  a  will,  —  that  a 
series  of  causes  began  its  course  with  the  begin- 
ning of  time  or  in  a  past  eternity  ;  that  every  sub- 
sequent event  has  been  an  effect  of  one  or  more 
of  those  causes,  itself  a  cause ;  that  the  effect, 
being  contained  in  the  cause,  can  never  have  been 

l 


2  BUM  AN  FREEDOM. 

by  any  possibility  other  than  it  actually  was,  and 
that,  so  far  as  man  is  concerned,  these  causes  have 
a  definite,  determinate,  and  absolute  control  over 
what  are  called  his  voluntary  powers.  By  this 
theory,  motives  are  forces  of  a  calculable  weight 
and  power ;  and  the  question  whether  and  how  far 
they  will  prevail,  is  closely  analogous  to  the  prob- 
lem of  balls  impinging  upon  one  another.  Given 
a  specific  human  constitution  and  a  specific  motive 
or  combination  of  motives,  the  resultant  action 
is  as  truly  inevitable  as  the  result  of  a  given 
mechanical  force  or  combination  of  forces  upon  a 
mass  of  known  bulk  and  weight. 

Man's  acts,  then,  are  not  his.  If  there  be  a  God, 
he  does  all  that  man  seems  to  do.  If  he  is  a 
beneficent  being,  then  is  the  evil  which  man  seems 
to  do  of  beneficent  influence ;  and  human  scourges 
of  their  race,  like  the  fearful  convulsions  of 
nature,  are  incidental  to  the  development  of  a 
system  of  things  which  has  the  highest  good  for 
its  aim  and  issue.  If  there  be  not  a  God,  then 
human  conduct  has  no  more  of  soul  or  meaning  in 
it  than  there  is  in  the  vicissitudes  of  inanimate 
nature. 

This  theory  degrades  man  to  the  lowest  point. 
Either  by  unreasoning  nature  or  by  the  arbitrary 
will  of  God,  he  may  be  made  to  serve  the  vilest 
uses,  —  purposes  meaner  and  more  loathsome  than 


THE  NECESSARIAN   THEORY.  3 

are  assigned  to  aught  else  in  the  universe,  and 
that  by  no  fault  of  his;  for  he  is  incapable  of 
wrong.  Nor  can  good  come  to  the  individual  man 
from  the  vileness  to  which  he  is  subjected.  He 
may  be  the  stepping-stone  for  good  to  others  ;  but 
if  he  has  no  capacity  of  being  otherwise  than  he 
is,  he  is  none  the  less  trampled  upon  and  trodden 
down  by  them.  Nor  is  there  any  dignity  or  merit 
in  what  is  called  his  penitence,  which  is  a  mere 
change  of  the  forces  that  work  irresistibly  upon 
him.  Nor  yet  can  he  hope  for  any  thing  better 
in  another  life.  He  may  be  immortal ;  but  if  so, 
he  must  be  subject  in  the  future  to  the  same  con- 
ditions of  being  under  which  he  has  lived  here. 
If  there  be  no  God,  I  know  not  why  the  possibili- 
ties of  atheism  should  brighten  with  a  change  of 
sky ;  and  if  there  be  a  God  who  has  lacked  either 
the  power  or  the  love  to  deal  better  with  his 
human  creatures  —  I  will  not  say  children  —  in 
this  world,  how  can  it  be  supposed  that  he  will  be 
able  or  willing  to  do  better  for  them  in  any  other 
condition  of  being  ?  It  is  only  when  we  consider 
the  present  state  of  things  as  a  system  of  moral 
discipline,  educational  in  its  purpose,  and  as  fitted 
for  the  highest  development  of  the  race,  while  that 
of  the  individual,  if  postponed,  will  not  be  suffered 
ultimately  to  fail,  that  the  actual  condition  of  ag- 
gregate humanity  can  be  regarded  as   otherwise 


4  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

than  unspeakably  wretched.  But  this  is  no  argu- 
ment. There  is,  however,  a  plausibility  in  the 
theory  of  philosophical  necessity,  which  sometimes 
insnares  unwary  disciples,  who  are  wholly  una- 
ware of  the  debasement  and  hopeless  misery  which 
it  implies. 

In  the  inquiry  as  to  human  freedom,  it  must  be 
admitted,  that,  at  the  first  aspect,  a  very  strong 
case  may  be  made  in  behalf  of  necessity.  There 
is  no  uncaused  event  or  phenomenon.  Whatever 
occurs  is  an  effect,  and  presupposes  a  cause.  But 
whence  comes  our  idea  of  causation  ?  Suppose 
that  precisely  the  same  things  that  occur  were  to 
take  place  outside  of  us,  and  that  we  were  intelli- 
gent beings  as  now,  with  full  power  of  perception 
and  reasoning,  yet  utterly  incapable  of  doing  any 
thing,  of  influencing  in  the  least  the  course  of 
things  around  us,  should  we  have  any  conception 
of  cause?  Manifestly  not.  Antecedence  and 
sequence  would  be  all  that  we  should  know.  The 
idea  of  causation  comes  from  our  own  conscious- 
ness, —  from  the  fact  that  we  ourselves  are  causes. 
But  how  are  we  causes?  Not  by  our  limbs  alone. 
I  might  use  my  hands  and  feet  as  I  use  them  now, 
and  they  might  seem  to  me  merely  parts  of  the 
universe  around  me,  and  their  movements  mere 
successive  events,  not  my  acts.  An  absolute 
idiot  has  no  idea  of  causation  in  connection  with 


CAUSATION.  5 

what  he  does.  The  first  step  in  the  education  of 
the  idiot,  as  of  the  infant  child,  is  to  make  him 
connect  what  he  does  with  its  effects,  and  thus  to 
bring  his  acts  under  the  partial  control  of  such 
mind  as  he  has.  My  hand  did  not  write  this  lec- 
ture. Nor  did  the  mechanism  of  my  limbs  bring 
me  hither  to  deliver  it.  My  hands  and  my  feet 
had  no  other  kind  of  agency  than  belongs  to  the 
pen,  or  the  locomotive  engine,  or  the  carriage. 
There  was  a  cause  behind  my  bodily  organism 
which  put  it  in  motion.  I  am  conscious  that  my 
will  has  a  causative  power,  and  I  can  get  no  con- 
ception of  causation  except  through  that  con- 
sciousness. 

Moreover,  I  can  conceive  of  God  as  a  cause  only 
because  I  know  that  I  am  a  cause.  I  can,  at  any 
point  within  the  sphere  of  my  action,  arrest  and 
change  the  normal  order  of  nature,  not,  indeed, 
superseding  its  laws,  but  manipulating  them  as  an 
organist  manipulates  the  stops  and  keys  of  his  or- 
gan, so  that  things  will  take  place,  which,  but  for 
my  will,  would  not  take  place.  The  only  reason 
why  it  can  enter  my  mind  that  there  is  a  causative 
power  in  the  action  of  the  moon  on  the  tides,  is 
that  I  have  causative  power  over  certain  portions 
of  the  universe.  I  know,  too,  that  what  causative 
power  I  have  is  not  in  my  bodily  organs,  but  in  a 
faculty  which  controls  Jhem,  and  which,  be  it  what 


6  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

it  may,  I  call  mind,  and  that  apart  from  mind  I 
do  nothing.  I  conclude,  then,  that  for  me  mind  is 
the  only  seat  of  power ;  and  I  rise  thence  to  the 
conception  of  a  Supreme  Mind  as  the  seat  and 
source  of  power  in  the  universe  at  large,  —  as  the 
initiating  and  controlling  cause  of  all  worlds,  of 
all  beings,  and  of  the  normal  course  of  nature. 
Nor  can  I  account  for  the  existence  and  order  of 
the  universe,  except  by  assuming  the  existence 
of  a  Supreme  Will-Power  of  the  same  type  with 
that  of  which  I  myself  am  conscious. 

Now,  is  it  not  evident  that  the  argument  against 
man's  freedom,  derived  from  the  supposed  series 
of  causes  and  inevitable  effects,  applies  to  God's 
freedom  as  well  as  to  man's  ?  If  the  chain  is  un- 
broken, then  God  has  abdicated  his  control  over 
nature,  if  he  ever  had  any.  If  no  event  can  take 
place  without  an  adequate  finite  cause,  then  God 
has  no  more  power  in  the  universe  than  I  have ; 
and  a  God  who  has  resigned  his  power,  or  never 
had  any,  is  no  God.  If  God  is,  we  cannot  doubt 
his  power  to  arrest  or  change  the  course  of  nature. 
Whether  he  has  ever  done  so,  in  what  we  call 
miracle,  is  an  open  question,  even  with  those  who 
believe,  as  I  do,  in  the  historical  truth  of  events 
commonly  termed  miraculous.1     But,  however  this 

1  How  know  we,  that,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  a  being  so 
at  one  with  God  as  Jesus  Christ  was,  has  not  of  necessity  an  in- 

\ 


MAN,  A   CAUSE.  7 

may  be,  it  is  conceivable  that  in  our  own  time, 
and  in  all  time,  he  may  so  modify  the  operation 
of  natural  laws,  that  their  non-miraculous  working 
shall  be  otherwise  than  it  would  be  without  his 
action  upon  them ;  in  fine,  that  he  may  exercise 
precisely  the  supernatural  power  which  we  are 
conscious  of  exercising.  He  thus  may,  at  any 
moment,  without  interfering  with  the  laws  of  na- 
ture, indeed  by  the  instrumentality  of  those  laws, 
start  a  new  series  of  finite  causes.  Now,  this  is 
precisely  what  we  are  conscious  of  doing.  I  will 
an  act,  and  take  the  requisite  measures  for  its  per- 
formance. In  so  doing,  I  start  a  series  of  material 
causes  and  effects  which  else  would  not  have  been 
started.  I  am  distinctly  conscious  of  having  not 
been  forced  to  start  this  series.  I  know,  so  far  as 
I  know  any  thing,  that  I  could  have  omitted  to  do 
this,  or  have  done  the  opposite ;  and  when  I  say 
that  I  am  thus  conscious  of  freedom,  I  mean  that 

tenser,  more  subtile,  and  more  efficient  will-power  over  nature 
than  belongs  to  common  men  ?  On  this  supposition,  what  are 
called  his  miracles  may  have  been  no  less  normal  and  natural 
than  what  we  are  doing  every  day.  Nor  need  we  ascribe  such 
power  to  him  alone.  Something  like  it  may  have  been  exercised 
by  those  who  have  approached  nearest  to  him  in  character,  or 
by  those  who  have  been  energized  and  exalted  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  special  divine  inspiration  or  mission.  It  may  be,  too, 
that  like  superior  power  over  nature  will  become  normal  for 
renovated  man  in  that  remote  yet  anticipated  era  when  the 
brightest  pages  of  prophecy  shall  be  re- written  in  human  history. 


8  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

I  am  in  my  own  sphere  and  measure  a  first  cause, 
an  originating  cause,  even  as  GTod  is  in  his  universal 
domain. 

But  we  are  told  by  some  extreme  necessitarians, 
that  consciousness  is  liable  to  mistake,  and,  there- 
fore, not  valid  evidence  ;  that  the  only  things  of 
which  we  can  be  certain  are  things  that  can  be 
seen  and  handled,  and  taken  cognizance  of  by  the 
senses.  But  these  are  precisely  the  things  which 
we  do  not  know.  I  believe,  but  do  not  absolutely 
know,  that  these  seats  and  walls  and  windows  have 
an  existence  outside  of  my  own  mind.  What  I 
do  know,  is  that  I  am  conscious  of  certain  images 
in  my  mind  which  I  suppose  to  have  their  external 
counterparts.  Yet  to-night  I  shall,  very  probably, 
dream  of  this  hall,  and  shall  be  conscious  of  pre- 
cisely the  same  images  in  my  mind  that  are  there 
now,  though  they  will  have  in  my  bedroom  no 
outside  counterparts.  Consciousness,  so  far  as  we 
know,  is  infallible.  Our  senses  are  not  so.  Jaun- 
dice, disease,  dream,  delirium,  may  make  them  false 
witnesses.  My  feelings  may  be  wayward,  unrea- 
sonable, insane,  yet  they  are  real.  I  am  never  mis- 
taken with  regard  to  them,  though  I  may  be  wide 
of  the  mark  in  my  notions  of  persons  and  objects 
associated  with  them.  Then,  too,  all  reasoning 
rests  on  consciousness.  If  the  evidence  of  con- 
sciousness is  ruled  out,  I  cannot  be  sure  that  even 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF  FREEDOM.  9 

what  seem  invincible  arguments  against  human 
freedom  are  what  they  seem.  If  I  cannot  trust  my 
own  consciousness,  I  cannot  trust  the  conclusion  of 
a  seemingly  valid  syllogism ;  for  why  may  not  the 
premises  really  authorize  a  conclusion  opposite  to 
that  which  to  my  consciousness  is  logical  and  just? 

We  have  a  consciousness  of  freedom,  which 
shows  itself  in  several  different  forms.  We  have 
this  consciousness  at  the  moment  of  action.  We 
have  it  again,  in  retrospection,  in  which  our 
thoughts  take  the  form,  not  of  self-congratulation 
or  self-pity,  but  always  of  self-approval  or  self- 
blame.  Now,  if  my  boots  were  self-conscious,  they 
might  think  themselves  happy  when  I  wore  them 
on  a  smooth  pavement  and  under  a  bright  sky, 
and  consider  themselves  as  objects  of  pity  when 
I  dragged  them  through  miry  streets  ;  but  because 
they  could  not  move  without  me,  or  stay  at  home 
when  I  wanted  to  wear  them,  it  is  impossible  that 
they  should  think  well  or  ill  of  themselves.  But 
if  I  cannot  do  otherwise  than  I  do,  my  moral  posi- 
tion is  precisely  that  of  my  self-conscious  boots, 
and  it  is  impossible  that  I  should  approve  or  blame 
myself. 

Still  farther,  in  our  judgment  of  others  we  are 
distinctly  conscious,  not  only  of  affection  and  dis- 
like, congratulation  and  pity,  but  equally  of  ap- 
proval and  blame,  —  of  approval,  often,  of  those 


10  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

whom  we  do  not  like,  of  blame  of  those  whom  we 
tenderly  love. 

But  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  power  of  motives  ? 
Are  we  conscious  of  being  their  slaves,  or  their 
masters  ?  Are  we  wholly  dependent  on  them  for 
action  ?  Can  we  in  any  case  act  without  them  ? 
We  cannot,  indeed,  initiate  action  without  them  ; 
for  they  are  what  their  name  means,  —  motors,  mov- 
ers. A  motive  presents  itself.  It  must  somehow 
be  taken  cognizance  of.  We  must  do  something ; 
but  it  may  be  the  refusal  to  do  what  the  motive 
suggests,  which,  so  far  as  the  will  is  concerned,  is 
action,  —  it  may  be  the  opposite  of  what  the 
motive  suggests.  The  motive  is  virtually  a  ques- 
tion, "  Will  you  do  this,  or  will  you  not  ?  "  We 
can,  as  we  please,  answer  Yes  or  No ;  and  if  we 
answer  Yes,  there  remains  the  choice  of  methods, 
as  to  which  there  may  be  no  motive  pointing  in 
one  direction  rather  than  in  another.  The  school- 
men denied  the  possibility  of  action  when  there 
is  no  determining  motive  in  one  way  rather  than 
in  another.  They  said  that  an  ass  between  two 
equal  and  equidistant  bundles  of  hay  would  starve 
to  death,  because  he  would  have  no  reason  for 
making  a  choice  between  the  two.  How  this  may 
be,  I  cannot  tell ;  but  men  are  not  asses,  and  we 
all  have  often  made  a  choice  when  there  was  no 
reason  for  the  specific  choice.     I  often  go  from 


MOTIVES.  11 

Cambridge  to  Concord.  There  are  two  railway 
routes,  to  me  equally  convenient.  I  have  no 
reason  whatever  for  preferring  one  to  the  other. 
Yet  I  do  not  therefore  stay  at  home  when  I  want 
to  be  in  Concord.  I  make  an  entirely  arbitrary 
choice,  —  a  choice,  too,  which  in  certain  contingen- 
cies might  be  fatal,  or  might  be  of  very  important 
influence  on  my  coming  life,  even,  especially  were 
I  a  young  man,  on  my  moral  well-being  and  des- 
tiny. We  are  constantly  choosing  between  two 
alternatives  without  any  specific  motive.  In  car- 
rying a  general  purpose  into  execution,  we  often 
make  an  entirely  unmotived  choice  among  several 
ways,  or  places,  or  methods,  or  associates,  for  nei- 
ther of  which  we  have  any  conscious  preference. 
We  are,  at  the  same  time,  conscious  of  power  over 
motives  when  they  are  presented  to  us.  We 
make  them  strong  or  weak  by  the  element  which 
our  selfhood  puts  into  them ;  and  this  often  ren- 
ders the  motive  which  is  intrinsically  the  strongest 
weak,  because  of  its  very  strength.  Thus,  a  great 
temptation  may  start  into  unwonted  activity  the 
moral  selfhood  of  one  whose  drift  has  been  in  the 
direction  of  slight  temptations  to  petty  wrongs  or 
sins,  which  have  found  the  will-power  passive  and 
sluggish.  It  is  not  mere  character  or  the  strength 
of  character  that  always  decides  on  such  occasions, 
but   there   is   something   like   the  summoning  of 


12  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

latent  interior  forces  to  active  duty ;  and  this  we 
feel  to  be  a  process  performed  not  for  us,  but  by 
us,  and  of  our  own  free  choice  and  effort.  We 
are  thus  distinctly  conscious  that  it  is  our  own 
selfhood  that  makes  a  motive  stronger  or  weaker, 
—  dominant  or  powerless. 

But  is  not  this  selfhood  a  necessity  ?  Can  we 
do  otherwise  than  our  aggregate  of  character 
would  prompt  ?  Can  we  will  to  act,  so  to  speak, 
out  of  character  ?  In  answering  this  question,  I 
will  ask  your  attention  to  the  degree  and  the 
mode  in  which  character  affects  our  volition. 
When  we  perform  a  specific  act  or  an  act  of  a 
specific  complexion  for  the  first  time,  there  is 
a  conscious  weighing  of  motives,  and  a  resultant 
choice.  Even  if  the  prevailing  motive  be  sud- 
denly flashed  upon  us,  and  take  us  by  surprise, 
still  there  is  a  hurried  inward  parley  between  op- 
posing motives,  —  a  rapid  process  of  comparison, 
so  rapid,  it  may  be,  as  to  lead  to  a  different  course 
of  conduct  from  what  our  deliberate  judgment 
would  prompt.  The  next  time  the  same,  or  vir- 
tually the  same,  question  is  urged  upon  us  with 
the  same  or  similar  motives,  there  is  a  remem- 
brance of  the  previous  decision,  which  is  very 
likely  to  preclude  careful  consideration ;  and  to 
this  may  be  added  the  satisfaction  or  pleasure 
derived  on  the  former  occasion,  which  is  an  addi- 


COLLECTIVE   VOLITIONS.  13 

tional  reason  for  not  trying  the  issue  again.  The 
consequence  is,  that  there  is  less  and  less  thought 
with  every  repetition,  till  the  habit  is  so  formed 
that  one  is  no  longer  conscious  of  any  thought  in 
connection  with  it.  Thus  it  is  that  one  is  prone 
to  follow  his  own  example  rather  than  any  other. 
But  there  always  remains  the  power  of  reviewing 
the  original  decision,  and  discontinuing  the  habit ; 
and  the  purpose  of  thus  going  back  upon  one's 
self  may  be  evolved  from  within,  without  external 
prompting.  Repentance  and  reformation  may  be 
the  result  of  reflection  which  one  is  conscious  of 
originating  by  a  pure  act  of  the  will.  Habits  are 
probably  fully  as  often  broken  by  an  unmotived 
interior  process  of  reflection  as  by  any  outward 
inducement ;  and  as  regards  an  entire  change  of 
character,  the  only  motive-power  that  can  be  traced 
is  often  voluntary  and  prolonged  meditation  on 
one's  own  past  and  present  selfhood. 

In  immediate  connection  with  repentance,  I 
would  name  what  may  not  unaptly  be  called  com- 
plex, or  collective,  or  comprehensive  volitions, 
which  embrace  a  large  number  and  variety  of 
separate  volitions,  and  occupy  a  great  part  of  a 
lifetime  in  their  development.  To  this  class 
belongs  the  religious  purpose,  —  the  determination 
to  lead  a  Christian  life, — the  resolve  to  make 
duty  supreme.     This  may  be  momentary,  yet  may 


14  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

embrace  eternity.  It  is,  no  doubt,  in  most  cases, 
the  result  of  a  train  of  serious  thoughts  and  devo- 
tional exercises,  and  in  that  sense  it  is  of  gradual 
growth.  Yet  must  there  not  be  a  moment  of  con- 
summation, when  the  purpose  long  conceived  is 
born,  —  when  the  irrevocable  position  is  con- 
sciously assumed,  —  when  the  soul  says,  "  I  will 
henceforth  will  only  as  God  wills "  ?  Now,  this 
volition  comprehends  a  vast  bundle  of  individual 
volitions,  which  is  untied,  and  its  contents  taken 
out  one  by  one.  The  penitence  which  refers  to 
the  whole  past,  the  reformation  which  includes 
the  whole  future,  belongs  to  this  class  of  complex 
volitions.  Such  volitions  are  sometimes  made  also 
with  regard  to  objects  of  no  ethical  value,  —  sel 
dom,  if  ever,  with  regard  to  evil  as  such  (for 
"  Evil,  be  thou  my  good,"  is  satanic  rather  than 
human),  but  not  infrequently  in  the  choice  of 
some  supreme  end,  as  gain,  or  political  influence, 
or  public  office,  or  a  specific  type  of  fame,  as  the 
aim  to  which  everything  else  shall  be  made  sub- 
servient. 

Now,  these  volitions  which  cover  the  entire  lives 
of  very  many  persons,  and  include  the  greater  part 
of  their  voluntary  acts,  transcend  all  that  can  be 
imagined  of  the  power  of  external  motives,  whose 
force  would  be  spent  in  inducing  an  individual, 
simple  volition.     The  single  external  motive  ade- 


REFLECTION.  15 

quate  to  this  effect  must  be  strong  enough  not 
only  to  create  a  single  intense  volition,  but  to 
maintain  the  will-power  in  tension  years  and  years 
after  the  original  motive  has  become  faint  in  the 
recollection,  and  almost  faded  out  of  the  life. 
Moreover,  in  many  of  these  cases,  there  is  not  the 
slightest  consciousness  or  remembrance  of  any  such 
motive  from  without.  The  impulse  is,  so  far  as 
the  testimony  of  consciousness  can  be  relied  on, 
entirely  self-born. 

This  leads  me  to  the  mode  in  which  our  freedom 
is  chiefly  exercised.  It  is  not  at  the  moment  of 
action ;  and  in  the  phenomena  of  external  activity, 
there  is  much  that  seems  to  favor  the  theory,  not 
of  a  necessity  from  without,  but  of  a  necessity 
created  by  our  own  characters,  though  the  cases 
are  not  infrequent,  and  probably  have  fallen  within 
the  experience  of  all  of  us,  in  which  we  have 
adopted  a  particular  course  of  action  for  the  very 
purpose  of  resisting  and  thwarting  our  conscious 
bent  or  bias,  thus  making  it  our  express  aim  to 
act  out  of  character.  But  we  are  the  most  active 
when  we  seem  the  "least  active.  We  will  the  most 
resolutely  when  we  have  the  least  consciousness 
of  willing.  Our  quiet  hours  are  our  busiest.  Our 
day-dreams,  our  cherished  reveries,  our  prolonged 
musings  in  listless  seasons,  on  wakeful  nights,  in 
our  walks  and  our  journeys,  are  full  of  embryo  voli- 


16  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

tions,  which  come  to  birth  in  our  active  life,  but 
which  are  then  already  fully  formed,  and  awaiting 
their  birth-hour.  It  is  at  such  times  that  we 
choose  our  aims,  and  plan  our  life  way.  Over  these 
seasons  we  have  control.  The  spirits  come  and 
go  at  our  bidding.  Those  that  we  make  welcome 
stay  or  return.  Those  that  we  resolutely  spurn 
cease  to  seek  an  entrance.  In  fine,  we  exercise 
the  power  of  attention,  and  are  as  capable  of  di- 
recting our  attention  at  pleasure  as  we  are  of 
choosing  what  books  we  will  read.  The  ultimate 
purpose  which  gives  character  to  action  is  the 
result  of  prolonged  attention,  it  may  be  with  no 
specific  purpose  at  the  outset.  Thus,  a  youth  may 
seek  a  morbid  satisfaction  in  acting  inwardly  vi- 
cious indulgences  of  which  in  the  outward  man  he 
deems  himself  utterly  incapable.  But  from  such 
meditation  the  vicious  will  can  hardly  fail  to  shape 
itself;  and  when  he  yields  to  seductive  evil,  the 
will  so  to  yield  was  born  in  the  hours  when  he 
would  have  deemed  such  vicious  acts  impossible. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  youth  may,  by  prolonged 
meditation  on  a  high  ideal  of  character,  give  such 
a  trend  to  his  volitions,  that  he  shall  seem  to 
embrace  spontaneously  opportunities  for  duty  and 
means  of  spiritual  growth ;  while,  in  fact,  these 
volitions  are  the  outcome  of  thoughts,  visions, 
ambitions,  which  he  invited,  recalled,  cherished, 


ATTENTION.  17 

made  habitual  by  his  own  unmotived  choice,  when 
it  was  equally  in  his  power  to  have  shut  out  all 
these,  and  harbored  in  their  stead  imaginings  and 
musings  of  a  directly  opposite  type.  Had  the  old 
prophet  been  versed  in  the  profoundest  specula- 
tive philosophy  of  human  action,  he  could  not 
have  voiced  it  more  aptly  than  in  the  simple  ex- 
hortation, "  Consider  your  ways  ;  "  for  this  is  the 
most  important  thing  that  we  can  do,  and  in  this 
power  of  directing  our  attention  lies  in  great  part 
our  power  of  giving  consistency  and  a  fixed  deter- 
mination to  our  course  in  life,  and  thus  of  impart- 
ing definite  characteristics  to  our  volitions  taken 
collectively. 

As  the  early  formation  of  character  is  due,  for 
the  most  part,  to  the  tendency  to  make  volitions 
habitual  by  prolonged  attention,  the  ability  re- 
mains, with  the  hope  that  it  may  be  employed,  for 
one  who  has  taken  a  wrong  course  to  reconsider  his 
ways,  and  thus  to  retrace  his  steps.  He  who  feels 
himself  almost  irresistibly  the  slave  of  habit,  may, 
indeed,  make  spasmodic  efforts  to  escape  the  bond- 
age, and  may  fall  back  in  utter  helplessness;  yet  he 
is  still  capable  of  willing  profound,  earnest,  and 
prolonged  thought  upon  his  moral  condition  and 
habits,  and  such  thought  will  almost  inevitably 
give  a  new  trend  to  the  course  of  his  volitions, 
and  result  in  a  change  of  life.     The  reason  why 


18  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

reformation  after  very  early  life  is  so  rare,  and  the 
efforts  made  in  that  direction  are  so  often  made  in 
vain,  is  undoubtedly  the  indisposition  to  that  con- 
tinuous thought,  in  which  alone  repentance  can 
have  any  hopeful  birth. 

I  now  ask  you  to  consider  the  objection  to  hu- 
man freedom  grounded  on  the  divine  foreknowl- 
edge. If  God  foreknows  all  events,  then,  it  is 
maintained,  they  must  of  necessity  be  so  predeter- 
mined that  man  cannot,  in  any  case,  do  otherwise 
than  he  does. 

I  would  first  say,  that,  if  man's  freedom  and 
God's  foreknowledge  are  mutually  incompatible, 
we  still  cannot  deny  man's  freedom  ;  for  this  is  a 
truth  of  consciousness :  and  to  deny  the  testimony 
of  consciousness,  would  land  us  in  universal  scep- 
ticism. The  very  arguments  by  which  we  might 
attempt  to  prove  the  incompatibility  of  freedom 
and  foreknowledge  depend  on  the  testimony  of  con- 
sciousness for  their  validity  and  force.  If  events 
contingent  on  human  volition  are,  in  the  very  na- 
ture of  things,  unknowable,  then  to  deny  the  di- 
vine foreknowledge  of  them  does  not  derogate 
from  the  perfectness  and  infinity  of  the  Divine 
Being.  Omnipotence  cannot  make  two  and  two 
five,  or  do  any  thing  that  is  intrinsically  impossi- 
ble ;  and,  by  parity  of  reason,  omniscience  can- 
not know  what  is  intrinsically  unknowable.     Nor 


THE  DIVINE  FOREKNOWLEDGE.  19 

need  we  lose  even  our  faith  in  God's  discretionary 
providence  in  denying  his  foreknowledge  of  con- 
tingent events.  Man  is  constantly  exerting,  with 
reference  to  events  as  they  occur,  supernatural 
power,  mind-power,  will-power,  over  external  na- 
ture by  his  manipulation  of  the  laws  of  nature. 
God's  power  can  be  no  less  than  man's ;  and  he, 
without  miracle,  may  so  manipulate  the  natural 
laws  which,  in  the  last  analysis,  are  but  the 
chosen  method  of  his  working,  as  to  adapt  exter- 
nal events  to  the  volitions  and  acts  of  human 
beings  as  occasion  may  require. 

But  in  denying  human  freedom  on  the  ground 
of  the  divine  foreknowledge,  we  must  take  a  far- 
ther step,  which  would  be  fatal  to  our  recognition 
of  a  God  possessed  of  the  essential  attributes  of 
Godhead.  If  the  divine  prescience  of  man's  voli- 
tions is  inconsistent  with  his  freedom,  then  is  God's 
prescience  of  his  own  volitions  equally  inconsist- 
ent with  his  freedom.  He,  then,  is,  no  less  than 
man,  bound  by  an  invincible  necessity ;  that  is, 
he  is  not  the  Ruler  of  the  universe,  but  he  and 
man  are  equally  under  the  dominion  of  an  irresist- 
ible fate. 

But  are  human  freedom  and  the  divine  fore- 
knowledge really  incompatible  ?  Neither  abso- 
lutely excludes  the  other.  The  divine  nature 
is   incomprehensible    by   us.      Some    philosophers 


20  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

make  time  merely  a  category  of  human  thought. 
There  may  be  in  the  Divine  Mind  what  is  ascribed 
to  it  in  rhetoric  and  poetry,  an  "  eternal  now,"  — 
a  simultaneous  view  of  all  time,  as  of  all  space, 
so  that  the  past  and  the  future  are  present.  But 
not  to  dwell  on  what  we  cannot  understand,  we 
may  derive  some  suggestions  from  our  own  experi- 
ence. We  frequently  have  foreknowledge  where 
we  exert  neither  control  nor  influence.  I  know, 
with  virtually  absolute  certainty,  how  my  children 
or  my  very  intimate  friends  will  act  under  any 
given  condition.  It  is  conceivable  that  he  who 
foreknows  the  nature  and  surroundings  of  individ- 
ual men  may  know  how  they  will  act  in  any  and 
every  contingency,  though  they  be  perfectly  free. 
The  probability  that  this  may  be  so  is  enhanced  by 
what  we  have  known  of  the  marvellous  foresight 
of  prophetic  human  minds  that  have  mapped  oui> 
the  future  of  communities  and  nations,  and  have 
had  their  predictions  literally  verified,  though, 
when  they  were  made,  they  were  received  with 
scepticism,  and  even  with  ridicule. 

I  hardly  need  to  say  that  the  Christian  belief,  or 
rather,  the  belief  of  wise  and  good  men  of  all  ages, 
and  under  every  culture,  in  the  divine  influence  on 
the  human  soul,  has  no  adverse  bearing  on  man's 
freedom.  Indeed,  it  is  based  on  the  assumption 
of  his  freedom,  and  is  unmeaning  and  worthless 


LIMITS   OF  FREEDOM.  21 

on  any  other  ground.  If  man's  volitions  are  not 
his  own,  he  cannot  be  benefited  by  divine  aid. 
He  is  at  best  an  automaton,  and  the  Divine  Spirit 
can  make  of  him  nothing  more  or  better.  But  on 
the  ground  of  human  freedom,  man  is  a  fit  subject 
for  good  advice  and  influence,  and  is,  of  necessity, 
open  to  bad  advice  and  influence,  adapted,  not  to 
suppress  his  freedom,  but  to  supply  him  with  rea- 
sons for  a  choice,  —  reasons  which  it  is  competent 
for  him  to  admit,  or  to  set  aside.  If  God  influ- 
ences man,  it  is  in  the  same  way,  by  inspiring 
thoughts  which  he  may  either  cherish  or  spurn, 
and  which  differ  from  human  counsel  only  in  their 
reaching  the  soul,  not  in  articulate  words  or  in 
recognized  personal  communication,  but  through 
objects  in  nature,  events  in  providence,  or  a  direct 
action  on  the  mind  by  avenues  which  it  is  hardly 
possible  that  the  Creator  of  the  human  soul  has 
not  left  open  to  himself. 

We  have,  then,  reason  to  believe  man  free.  Yet 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  exercise  of  freedom 
is  in  individual  cases  more  or  less  narrowed  and 
limited.  A  man  may  have  such  native  proclivities 
to  evil,  or  such  a  constitutional  predisposition  to 
right  conduct,  as  in  the  former  case  to  render  vir- 
tuous living  intensely  difficult,  though  not  impos- 
sible, and  in  the  latter  case  to  give  a  prophecy  of 
goodness   that  is   seldom   belied.     Great    is    the 


22  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

power  of  heredity.  The  sins  of  the  fathers  are 
visited  "  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  ;  "  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  heritage  of  virtue,  did 
it  never  intermarry  with  the  seed  of  the  ungodly, 
might  not  so  descend  as  to  make  the  thousands  of 
generations  in  the  Decalogue  no  hyperbole.  Un- 
doubtedly cerebral  aptitudes  and  habitudes  pass 
from  parents  to  children,  from  ancestors  to  pos- 
terity. There  are  in  the  older  parts  of  this  coun- 
try representatives  of  families  that  crossed  the 
ocean  more  than  two  centuries  ago,  in  whom  the 
mental  and  moral  traits  of  their  progenitors  are  to 
be  still  recognized,  and  this  in  both  extremes  of 
society  ;  for  while  there  are  names  of  honor  on 
which  no  stain  has  ever  rested,  there  are  pauper 
and  worthless  descendants  of  ancestors  who  were 
a  charge  and  a  burden  on  the  first  settlers  of  our 
oldest  States. 

But  there  is  one  fact  which  shows  the  possibil- 
ity of  overcoming  the  power  of  heredity ;  namely, 
that  the  inheritance  of  character,  in  the  common 
phrase,  often  skips  over  one  generation,  and  re- 
appears in  the  next.  This  phenomenon  is  easily 
accounted  for.  A  shamefully  bad  man,  a  drunk- 
ard, or  a  profligate,  often  has  children  of  superior 
excellence,  because  they  are  conscious  of  their  evil 
heritage,  afraid  of  it,  and  intensely  solicitous  that 
it  should  lapse.     But  their  children  inherit   the 


HEREDITY.  23 

taint  without  the  shame  :  the  faultlessness  of  their 
parents  leaves  the  alarm  unsounded,  and  they 
yield  to  temptations  from  without  corresponding 
to  the  evil  proclivities  within.  You  may  see  also 
striking  cases  of  the  reverse  of  this.  A  genuinely 
and  sincerely  good  man,  yet  of  an  austere  and 
stern  temperament  and  habit,  makes  his  goodness 
distasteful  by  rigid  ways,  unconciliatory  manners, 
and  over-punctiliousness  in  domestic  discipline, 
and  his  children  are,  it  may  be,  repelled  and  driven 
into  evil  by  the  unlovely  aspect  of  their  father's 
virtues ;  but  when  this  is  so,  their  children  are 
almost  certain  to  grow  up,  not  only  with  good 
habits,  which  might  be  accounted  for  by  disgust 
for  their  father's  vices,  but  with  manifestly  strong 
constitutional  tendencies  in  the  right  direction. 

It  may,  then,  be  maintained,  that  heredity, 
though  it  may  have  a  potent  influence  on  the  gen- 
eral course  of  volition,  does  not  destroy  freedom, 
nor  even  impair  it  in  any  other  sense  than  that  in 
which  it  is  impaired  by  the  close  presence  of  exam- 
ple, or  the  intense  pressure  of  outside  motives.  If 
like  would  always  mate  with  like,  as  may  gradu- 
ally become  the  case  when  the  laws  of  heredity 
are  better  understood,  the  result  might  easily  be 
toward  "  the  survival  of  the  fittest ; "  for  in  the 
generations  of  the  ungodly  there  would  be  a  ten- 
dency to  die  out,  while  the  saints  would  in  due 


24  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

time  "  inherit  the  earth  ; "  and  they,  though  po- 
tentially endowed  with  full  freedom  to  do  evil, 
would,  in  fact,  exercise  their  freedom  only  in  the 
broad  and  ever-broadening  range  of  things  ex- 
cellent. 

We  need,  in  this  connection,  to  take  into  account 
the  cases  in  which  a  low  condition  and  the  utter 
lack  of  culture  make  men  wholly  incapable  of 
moral  choice  or  action,  and  render  abjectness, 
squalidness,  and  vice  an  absolute  necessity.  This 
is  manifestly  the  case  with  some  entire  races  or 
tribes,  especially  among  the  Polynesians,  and 
equally  with  the  heathen  of  our  great  cities,  who 
have  often  been  found  destitute  of  the  most  ele- 
mentary knowledge  of  common  things,  and  seem- 
ingly devoid  of  the  sense  of  duty,  of  right,  of 
obligation.  It  is  evident  that  such  human  beings 
are  not  moral  agents.  They  are  in  the  same  cate- 
gory with  children  of  tender  years.  Their  acts 
are  in  great  part  instinctive  :  and  so  far  as  they 
are  rational,  they  are  so  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
those  of  the  dog  or  the  horse  are  rational ;  that  is, 
they  adapt  their  conduct  spontaneously  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  moment,  without  knowing  that 
there  is  a  right  or  a  wrong.  There  are  others, 
probably  not  a  few  entire  races,  and  certainly 
many  in  the  lowest  ranks  of  civilized  society,  that 
have  only  a  very  restricted  knowledge  of  obliga- 


THE    UNPRIVILEGED.  25 

tions, —  a  very  narrow  range  of  relations  and 
objects  as  to  which  they  have  a  sense  or  feeling  of 
right  or  wrong.  Thus,  they  may  have  a  rude,  yet 
ardent,  patriotism.  Or  they  may  recognize  the 
sacredness  of  some  domestic  bond,  oftener  the 
parental  than  the  filial,  and  under  the  lowest  cul- 
ture either  of  these  oftener  than  the  conjugal. 
Or  they  may  have  a  reverence  for  promises  or 
oaths,  or  respect  for  some  description  of  property, 
or  a  sense  of  the  duties  of  hospitality  and  the 
rights  which  it  confers.  So  far  as  this  moral  sen- 
sitiveness extends,  moral  freedom  is  exercised. 
There  is  the  manifold  temptation  to  violate  the 
acknowledged  obligation,  to  disclaim  the  admitted 
right ;  and  there  are  occasions  when  the  virtuous 
act  is  one  of  moral  heroism,  and  when  the  vicious 
act  is  the  result  of  as  severe  a  conflict  as  is  wa^ed 
in  the  soul  of  the  civilized  man  when  the  Right  is 
almost,  but  not  quite,  the  conqueror.  The  story 
of  Pocahontas,  as  historians  say,  is  a  myth ;  but 
it  is  only  verisimilitude  that  makes  a  myth :  and 
there  are  many  authentic  records  of  cases  in  which 
a  savage,  in  order  to  keep  his  word,  or  to  serve  his 
tribe,  or  to  perform  offices  of  humanity  for  some 
one  cast  on  his  protection,  has  shown  the  same 
spirit  of  entire  self-sacrifice  which  has  girded  the 
brows  of  the  Christian  martyrs  with  the  aureola  of 
sainthood.     "  There  is  honor  among  thieves,"  and 


26  HUMAN  FREEDOM. 

that  not  without  a  moral  preference  for,  and  choice 
of,  the  right  as  to  their  mutual  relations  ;  while 
who  shall  say  how  far,  among  those  whose  train- 
ing is  in  vice,  there  is  a  sufficient  sense  of  the 
rights  of  other  classes  to  superfluous  property  to 
make  the  observance  or  violation  of  these  rights 
a  matter  of  moral  choice  ?  All  that  we  can  affirm 
(and  it  is  enough)  of  those  who  have  but  a  re- 
stricted range  of  moral  freedom  in  this  world, 
is  that  they  are  only  in  the  infancy  of  their  being, 
as  indeed  we  all  are,  and  that  if  in  their  case  such 
maturity,  at  the  best  immature,  as  we  attain  in 
the  present  life  be  postponed,  there  are  time  and 
room  for  it  in  the  life  eternal.  At  the  same  time, 
so  far  as  the  exercise  of  freedom  is  crippled  and 
limited,  there  is  a  comparatively  limited  respon- 
sibility, and  in  the  same  proportion  a  less  deep 
stain  of  guilt  on  the  soul.  You  or  I  may  do 
more  harm  to  our  moral  nature  by  a  willing 
though  slight  breach  of  the  law  of  kindness,  by 
a  calumnious  utterance,  or  by  a  selfish  construc- 
tion of  the  right,  than  is  wrought  by  }Tears  of 
evil-doing  on  the  part  of  one  "altogether  born  in 
sin. 

I  have  attempted  in  this  lecture  to  demonstrate 
human  freedom  in  the  exercise  of  the  will-power, 
while  admitting  that  this  freedom  has  its  limita- 
tions, and  that  it  exists  imperfectly  at  a  low  stage 


THE   WILLING   OF  IDEALS.  27 

of  development,  so  that  deficient  culture  may  be 
tantamount  to  infancy. 

Let  me  say  in  conclusion,  that  the  noblest  use  of 
our  freedom  is  in  the  shaping  of  ideals  which  it 
shall  be  the  continuous  life-aim  to  realize.  There 
are  those  who  will  only  specific  acts  when  there  is 
occasion  for  action.  There  are  others,  whose 
days  seem  "  bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety." 
They  determine  at  the  outset  what  they  will  be,L 
and  their  whole  lifeway  is  a  progress  toward  that 
end.  Happy  above  all  is  he  who  wills  beyond  his 
power  of  earthly  attainment,  —  who  sets  before 
himself  a  goal  which  he  will  not  reach  till  he 
reaches  heaven.  The  goal  recedes  as  he  ap- 
proaches it,  and  holds  a  higher  place  in  the  firma- 
ment as  he  rises,  —  always  near  enough  for  his 
hope,  always  far  enough  off  to  call  forth  his  strenu- 
ous endeavor.  Such  an  ideal  we  have  in  the 
evangelic  record,  once  realized  on  earth,  now  and 
ever  the  cynosure  of  faith  and  love  and  moral 
enterprise,  and  urging  upon  our  choice  the  service 
which  is  perfect  freedom,  and  in  which  alone 
human  freedom  finds  its  God-appointed  field,  mis- 
sion, and  destiny. 


LECTURE  II. 
THE   GROUND    OF  RIGHT. 

Human  acts,  or  I  would  rather  say  the  free 
acts  of  intelligent  beings,  are  the  subject-matter 
of  Moral  Philosophy,  —  yet  not  these  acts  in  all 
the  various  aspects  in  which  they  may  be  consid- 
ered. As  prudent  or  indiscreet,  they  are  to  be 
judged  by  their  effects  rather  than  by  their  mo- 
tives; and  such  character  as  they  have  in  this 
respect  may  be  given  to  them,  not  by  the  volitions 
from  which  they  proceed,  but  by  outward  circum- 
stances. As  becoming  or  unbecoming,  they  are 
to  be  judged  by  an  aesthetic  standard  which  varies 
very  widely  in  different  times  and  nations,  and  in 
different  portions  of  the  same  community.  Moral 
Philosophy  takes  cognizance  of  human  acts  as 
right  or  wrong. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  right  and  wrong?  I 
hardly  need  to  say  that  thes-e  are  figurative  terms, 
right  meaning  straight,  and  tvrong,  wrung,  dis- 
torted, crooked,  out  of  line.  The  underlying  idea 
is  that  of  a  linear  measure,  a    carpenter's   rule. 

28 


FITNESS,    THE  GROUND   OF  BIGHT.  29 

The  right  is  that  which  lies  even  with  the  meas- 
ure ;  the  wrong,  that  which  diverges  from  it. 

But  what  characteristic  is  it  that  renders  an  act 
right  or  wrong?  In  other  words,  what  is  the 
ground,  or  the  rule,  of  right?  Were  I  to  say, 
"  The  right  is  what  it  is  fitting  to  do ;  the  wrong, 
what  it  is  unfitting  to  do,"  I  might  seem  to  be 
uttering  a  mere  truism  ;  yet  in  my  belief  I  should 
be  announcing  the  fundamental  principle  of  Moral 
Philosophy,  —  a  principle,  too,  which  has  by  no 
means  the  universal,  or  even  the  general,  consent 
of  ethical  philosophers. 

I  regard  fitness  as  the  ultimate  and  sole  ground 
of  right.  Every  object  in  existence  has  its  proper 
place  and  its  proper  uses.  There  are  purposes  for 
which  it  is  fit ;  others,  for  which  it  is  not  fit.  It 
is  either  common  property,  and  may  thus  fitly  be 
in  the  hands  of  any  one  who  can  utilize  it;  or  it 
is  private  property,  and  is  therefore  fitly  in  the 
hands  of  its  owners,  or  of  those  to  whom  they 
grant  its  use.  When  we  say  that  an  object  is  in 
its  right  place,  put  to  its  rightful  use,  in  the  hands 
of  its  rightful  owners,  what  we  affirm  of  it  is  its 
fitness.  Its  wrong  place,  its  wrong  use  or  abuse, 
or  its  wrong  owner,  deprives  it  of  the  element  of 
fitness.  Now,  every  object  in  the  universe  is  at 
every  moment  either  in  or  out  of  its  place,  prop- 
erly used  or  misused  and  abused,  in  the  posses- 


30  THE  GROUND   OF  EIGHT. 

sion  or  out  of  the  possession  of  its  rightful  owners, 
and  is  therefore  in  a  fit  or  an  unfit  condition ;  that 
is,  in  a  right  or  wrong  condition. 

Still  further,  every  object  in  the  universe  is  at 
every  moment  under  the  direct  control  of  the 
Divine  Being  or  of  some  created  being,  and  it  is 
by  the  agency  of  that  being  that  it  is  or  is  not  at 
any  moment  in  the  ownership,  place,  and  use  prop- 
erly appertaining  to  it.  As  to  what  is  under 
God's  immediate  control,  we  conceive  only  of  the 
fitting,  and  therefore  the  right.  Whatever  is  under 
the  control  of  irrational  beings  may  or  may  not  be 
wrongly  held  and  used,  but  we  cannot  regard 
their  acts  as  possessing  any  moral  character.  As 
regards  whatever  is  under  the  control  of  intelli- 
gent finite  beings,  if  it  be  by  their  will  kept  in 
fitting  condition,  it  is  the  object  of  right  volitions  ; 
if  by  their  will  it  be  kept  in  unfitting  condition, 
it  is  the  object  of  wrong  volitions.  We  therefore 
are  doing  either  right  or  wrong  in  whatever  we  do 
writh  the  external  objects  under  our  control. 

Yet  more,  every  human  being  has,  by  virtue  of 
his  being,  his  fitting  place,  relations,  office,  work, 
in  the  family,  the  community,  the  nation,  the  race, 
and  with  reference  to  God.  There  are  certain 
things  which  it  is  fitting  for  him  to  be  and  to  do, 
because  they  belong  to  him,  or  are  incumbent  on 
him,  as  a  parent,  a  child,  a  neighbor,  a  citizen,  a 


RELATIVE  AND  ABSOLUTE  RIGHT.         31 

man,  a  creature  of  God.  These  things  are  virtu- 
ally appurtenances  of  his  selfhood.  They  fit  his 
inner  man  as  his  clothes,  if  well  made,  fit  his  body. 
The  omission  or  the  opposite  of  these  things  is  un- 
fitting. Because  these  offices  to  the  family,  the 
state,  and  the  commonwealth  of  God's  children 
are  fitting,  they  are  right;  and  the  omission  or 
the  opposite  of  them,  because  unfitting,  is  wrong. 
You  will  find,  that,  whenever  you  use  the  term 
right  or  wrong,  you  can  substitute  for  it  fitting  or 
unfitting ;  and  there  are  no  other  single  terms,  I 
think,  which  you  can  employ  as  definitions  of  right 
and  wrong. 

The  fitting  is  the  rule  as  well  as  the  standard 
of  right.  The  questions  that  we  virtually  ask  as 
to  the  right  might  resolve  themselves  into  "these : 
What  is  this  thing  fit  for  ?  What  conduct  is  be- 
fitting under  these  circumstances?  What  befits 
me  as  standing  in  my  various  relations  to  man  and 
to  God  ?  The  answer  to  either  of  these  questions 
determines  what  is  right,  and  carries  with  it  a 
sense  of  obligation,  or  of  duty,  —  duty,  that  which 
is  due,  or  which  one  owes,  ought  being  but  a  past 
tense  of  owe.  We  feel  that  we  owe  the  fitting 
under  all  circumstances  and  in  all  relations. 

But  here  comes  an  important  distinction.  Infi- 
nite wisdom  alone  can  know  all  fitnesses  with  cer- 
tainty;  men  must  often  make  mistakes.     I  may 


32  THE  GROUND   OF  RIGHT. 

administer  a  poison,  believing  it  to  be  a  curative 
drug ;  I  may  bestow  alms  where  my  gift  will  do 
harm ;  I  may  give  my  vote  or  my  influence  for  a 
man  or  a  measure  under  false  impressions  which  I 
have  no  means  of  correcting;  I  may  bestow  my 
confidence  where  it  is  undeserved,  or  withhold  it 
where  it  is  merited.  In  all  these  cases  I  act  right- 
ly if  I  have  not  omitted  proper  means  of  knowing 
the  truth ;  but  I  perform  the  relative,  not  the  ab- 
solute, right.  The  relative  right  is  what  the  moral 
agent  believes  to  be  right.  The  absolute  right  is 
what  is  right,  not  only  in  the  intention  of  the 
agent,  but  by  virtue  of  its  actual  fitness.  As  to 
the  greater  part  of  the  acts  of  persons  of  moder- 
ate intelligence  and  culture,  the  relative  and  the 
absolute  right  probably  coincide.  Yet  there  are 
chapters  of  man's  moral  history  which  may  well 
make  us  hesitate  to  pronounce  positively  as  to  the 
Tightness  of  some  things  as  to  which  the  best  men 
of  our  time  have  no  scruples.  John  Newton,  the 
author  of  some  of  the  sweetest  devotional  hymns 
in  our  language,  was  master  of  a  slave-ship;  and 
though  he  subsequently  took  holy  orders,  he  con- 
tinued in  the  slave-trade  for  some  time  after  he 
became  earnestly  religious,  and  had  daily  prayers 
on  deck  with  his  living  freight  in  the  hold  of  his 
vessel.  Indeed,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that  negroes  were  first  brought  to  America,  under 


SINS   OF  IGNORANCE.  33 

the  auspices  of  Las  Casas,  from  motives  of  hu- 
manity to  the  native  tribes  in  the  Spanish  colonies 
that  were  perishing  under  enforced  labor.  I  re- 
member when  there  were  devout  and  philanthropic 
distillers  and  venders  of  intoxicating  liquors  in 
Massachusetts,  and  when  our  best  churches  did 
not  consider  such  a  calling  as  a  disqualification  for 
the  office  of  deacon.  With  such  reversals  of  the 
best  public  opinion  as  have  taken  place  within 
the  lapse  of  a  century,  who  can  say  that  a  century 
hence  the  enslaving  of  domestic  animals  and  the 
slaughtering  of  beasts  for  food  may  not  be  re- 
garded on  good  grounds  as  unfitting,  and,  there- 
fore, wrong?  I  do  not,  indeed,  believe  this;  but 
equally  little  would  the  best  men  of  the  last  cen- 
tury have  believed  that  the  very  free  sale  and 
drinking  of  spirituous  liquors  would  ever  be  re- 
garded as  unfitting  and  wrong. 

In  this  connection  I  ought  to  speak  of  sins  of 
ignorance,  so  called.  There  are  none  such.  The 
relative  right,  however  widely  diverse  from  the 
absolute  right,  is  not  a  sin,  but  a  duty.  It  is  my 
duty,  in  every  case,  to  conform  my  conduct  to 
what  seems  to  me  fitting ;>  and,  whatever  may  be 
the  cause  of  my  ignorance  of  what  is  really  fitting, 
at  the  moment  of  action  I  am  bound  to  act  in  ac- 
cordance with  my  sincere  belief.  But  while  there 
are  no  sins  of  ignorance,  the  ignorance  itself  may 


34  THE  GROUND   OF  RIGHT. 

be  a  sin.  It  is  intrinsically  fitting,  therefore  right, 
and  therefore  my  duty,  to  gain  all  the  knowledge 
that  I  can  on  subjects  on  which  I  may  be  re- 
quired to  exercise  my  moral  judgment.  There  are 
things  which  I  ought  to  know,  yet  may  not  know ; 
and  if,  with  reference  to  these  things,  my  act,  in 
accordance  with  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  is 
absolutely  wrong,  it  yet  is  relatively  right,  while 
my  ignorance  is  both  relatively  and  absolutely 
wrong. 

The  question  of  the  ground  of  right  lies  at  the 
basis  of  moral  science,  and  the  different  answers  to 
this  question  impart  their  specific  character  to  the 
various  ethical  systems  of  ancient  and  modern 
times.  I  cannot,  within  my  proposed  limits,  give 
you  an  account  of  all  these  systems ;  but  it  may 
be  of  interest  and  service  to  you  that  you  should 
have  some  idea  of  the  ground  covered  by  specula- 
tion on  this  subject,  and  of  the  principal  systems 
that  have  had  currency  at  different  times.  I 
might  divide  them  into  two  classes,  —  those  which 
assign  to  the  Right  a  specific  character  of  its  own, 
and  those  which  define  it  by  its  consequences;  or, 
in  other  words,  those  which  make  virtue  to  consist 
in  what  it  is  and  deem  it  worthy  to  be  cherished 
for  its  own  sake,  and  those  which  make  it  consist 
in  what  it  does  or  in  the  good  that  comes  from  it. 
Each  of  these   classes   has   several   subdivisions. 


GOD'S  ACTS   HIS  BECAUSE  RIGHT.  35 

Among  those  of  the  first  are  the  theory  which  I 
have  expounded,  making  the  Right  to  consist  in 
fitness;  that  according  to  which  the  Right  consists 
in  the  divine  will  or  law  as  such ;  that  which 
makes  taste  or  its  aesthetic  quality  the  standard 
of  the  Right;  that  which  assigns  this  office  to  sym- 
pathy; and  those  that  maintain  the  existence  of 
an  interior  moral  sense  which  instinctively  deter- 
mines the  ethical  character  of  acts.  In  the  latter 
class  are  included  all  the  utilitarian  systems,  alike 
those  which  make  one's  own  pleasure  and  happi- 
ness, and  those  which  make  the  greatest  good  of 
the  greatest  number,  the  standard  of  right  and  the 
rule  of  virtue. 

We  will  first  consider  the  system  which  makes 
the  will  of  God  the  ground  and  rule  of  right.  I 
might  ask,  with  reference  to  this  theory,  What  do 
we  mean  when  we  ascribe  moral  attributes,  such 
as  justice,  holiness,  benevolence,  to  the  Supreme 
Being?  Does  not  this  imply  our  possession,  inde- 
pendently of  him,  of  a  standard  b}r  which  we  can 
judge  even  his  dispositions  and  acts?  If  we  say 
that  his  acts  are  right,  w7e  mean  that  w^e  have  the 
same  power  of  judging  them  that  we  have  of 
judging  the  character  of  our  own  acts.  In  main- 
taining that  his  acts  are  right  because  they  are 
his,  we  virtually  ascribe  to  them  no  moral  attri- 
butes, but  merely  apply  to  the  Majesty  of  Heaven 


36  THE  GROUND   OF  RIGHT. 

the  maxim  outgrown  on  earth,  unless  at  the  court 
of  Ashantee  or  Dahomey,  "The  king  can  do  no 
wrong."  There  is  nothing  in  mere  omnipotence 
that  can  attach  a  moral  character  to  the  acts 
which  it  performs  or  requires.  We  can  conceive 
of  omnipotent  malignity,  of  omnipotent  unholi- 
ness;  but  we  should  have  no  means  of  detecting 
the  malignity  or  the  unholiness  if  the  divine  will 
is  all  that  constitutes  right.  The  only  ground  on 
which  we  can  affirm  moral  attributes  of  God  is  in 
our  regarding  his  decrees  and  acts  as  not  right 
because  they  are  his,  but  as  his  because  they  are 
right. 

The  Greek  mythology  has  a  very  significant 
lesson  for  us  as  to  this  subject.  Prometheus  was 
the  benefactor  of  men,  brought  fire  from  heaven 
for  them,  and  for  his  philanthropy  incurred  the 
anger  of  Zeus,  was  nailed  to  a  rock  by  the  sea, 
and  condemned  to  have  his  eternally  growing 
liver  eternally  gnawed  by  an  immortal  vulture. 
The  sympathy  of  the  ancient  world  was  with 
him,  and  the  might  of  Zeus  did  not  shield  him 
in  epic  and  in  tragedy  from  the  charge  of  the 
most  atrocious  tyranny  and  cruelty. 

A  conception  analogous  to  that  of  Zeus  has 
been  rife  even  in  New  England  within  my  mem- 
ory, though  now  almost  obsolete.  In  some  of  our 
churches  it  was  currently  said   that   the  natural 


FALSE   VIEWS  OF  GOD.  37 

man  hates  God ;  and  converted  men  and  women, 
in  their  (so-called)  experience-meetings,  were  wont 
to  say  that  they  used  to  hate  God.  I  knew  a  very 
devout  schoolmaster  who  sometimes  commenced 
his  morning  prayer  by  saying,  in  the  name  of  his 
unregenerate  pupils,  "  O  God,  we  hate  thee!"  I 
have  no  doubt  that  these  statements  were  true, 
and  the  only  change  on  the  part  of  converted 
persons  was  that  they  found  in  Christ  a  God 
whom  they  could  not  but  love.  Theologians  of 
this  type  maintained  the  damnation  of  the  hea- 
then, and  sometimes,  of  infants;  believed  that 
God  arbitrarily  elected  certain  members  of  the 
human  race  for  salvation,  and  decreed,  from  all 
eternity,  the  wickedness  of  the  wicked  as  well  as 
their  horrible  doom ;  ascribed  to  his  direct  com- 
mand the  slaughter  of  the  Ganaanites,  with  their 
women  and  children,  and  represented  his  wrath  as 
unappeasable,  except  by  an  innocent  being's  bear- 
ing the  full  punishment  due  to  the  guilty.  Men's 
natural  sense  of  fitness  and  of  its  equivalent,  the 
Right,  recoiled  from  such  a  God ;  and  a  great  deal 
of  the  infidelity  which  prevailed  two  or  three  gen- 
erations ago  sprang  from  the  impossibility,  on  the 
part  of  ingenuous  minds,  of  believing  in  such  a 
Governor  of  the  universe,  while  its  better  forms 
were  really  more  nearly  Christian  than  the  type 
of  Christianity  which  they  replaced. 


38  THE  GROUND   OF  RIGHT. 

The  admission  that  the  will  of  God  is  the  ulti- 
mate standard  of  right,  would  open  the  way  for 
every  form  of  imposture  and  fanaticism ;  and  the 
standard  could  be  rendered  availing  only  by  an 
express  revelation  so  authenticated  that  there 
could  be  no  room  for  doubt,  and  so  promulgated 
that  it  could  be  accessible  to  all  men.  So  long  as 
there  is  any  thing  less  than  this,  the  divine  com- 
mand may  be  imagined  or  alleged  in  behalf  of  any 
act,  however  foolish  or  wicked.  The  poor  wretch 
in  Massachusetts  who  a  few  years  ago  murdered 
his  child  as  a  religious  act,  was  insane  on  no  other 
point,  but  imagined  that  God  had  commanded  him 
to  make  this  sacrifice.  Had  he  been  taught  that 
God  himself  cannot  alter  the  qualities  of  moral 
acts  so  as  to  make  wrong  right,  he  probably  would 
have  been  able  so  to  try  the  spirits  as  to  know 
that  the  murderous  impulse  could  not  be  from 
God. 

Of  course,  the  disciples  of  every  religion  and  of 
every  Christian  sect  suppose  that  they  derive  their 
dogmas  from  God ;  and  for  whatever  there  is  in 
their  rules  of  worship  or  of  fellowship  that  is  less 
than  generous,  kind,  and  charitable,  they  allege 
religious  reasons  which  resolve  themselves  virtually 
into  the  divine  command.  They  ought  to  know, 
that  were  God  to  issue  any  command  inconsistent 
with  the  precept,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor 


POSITIVE  DIVINE  COMMANDS.  39 

as  thyself,"  even  he  could  not  give  validity  to  it, 
because  it  would  be  opposed  to  the  principles  of 
eternal  fitness  and  everlasting  right.  Indeed,  the 
strongest  proof  that  Christianity  came  from  God 
is  the  entire  conformity  of  its  teachings  and  of  the 
divine  life  which  it  portrays  with  intrinsic  fitness, 
—  a  conformity  that  grows  upon  us  the  more 
closely  we  study  it,  both  in  its  source  and  in  its 
issues,  so  that  we  get  to  look  upon  it,  not  as  born 
with  Christ,  but  as  coeval  with  nature,  as  co-eter- 
nal with  the  Author  of  nature,  and  as  in  Christ 
but  the  revelation  of  what  had  always  been. 

It  may  here  be  asked,  Is  it  not  conceivable  that 
God  may  issue  positive  commands,  which  are  to 
be  obeyed  as  such,  without  reference  to  the  ques- 
tion of  fitness?  I  answer,  Yes;  but  they  are  to 
be  obeyed,  if  not  for  their  intrinsic  fitness,  on  ac- 
count of  the  fitness  of  obedience  as  regards  the 
relation  in  which  we  stand  to  God.  Yet  were 
there  any  perception  of  unfitness  or  any  absolute 
assurance  of  non-fitness,  this  would  give  us  ample 
reason  for  believing  that  the  command  in  question 
could  not  have  come  from  God,  however  strong 
the  external  evidence  that  it  came  from  him. 
Thus,  religious  institutions  may  be  observed  as  of 
divine  command,  directly  or  through  Jesus  Christ, 
even  though  we  might  not  deem  them  necessary. 
But  should  any  such  observance  prove  itself  on  pro- 


40  THE  GROUND   OF  RIGHT. 

longed  trial  utterly  harmful  to  man's  religious  na- 
ture, or  absolutely  useless,  we  could  not  but  regard 
the  record  of  divine  appointment  as  mythical.  The 
Eucharist  has  in  all  ages  been  found  edifying  and 
helpful,  and  all  its  characteristics  are  those  of  fit- 
ness for  its  place  in  the  Christian  ritual.  We  may 
therefore  well  believe  that  Christ  was  divinely 
moved  to  ordain  this  mode  of  commemorating  his 
love,  though  we  may  not  see  why  some  other  mode 
might  not  have  served  the  same  purpose  as  well  or 
better.  Some  Christian  sects  have  adopted  the 
washing  of  the  disciples'  feet  into  their  ritual,  be- 
lieving it  to  have  been  appointed  by  Christ  in  his 
words  immediately  after  he  had  performed  this 
office  of  humility  and  love,  —  "I  have  given  you 
an  example,  that  ye  should  do  as  I  have  done  to 
you."  But  it  is  found  not  only  destitute  of  edi- 
fication, but  possessed  of  a  more  than  negative 
unfitness;  and  it  has  therefore  been  generally 
dropped  from  Christian  worship,  though  resting 
on  the  same  kind  of  sanction  which  we  deem  ade- 
quate for  the  Eucharist,  —  indeed,  so  sanctioned 
that  every  church  in  Christendom  would  practise 
it,  if  any  good  could  come  from  it. 

As  for  express  commands  from  God,  our  posi- 
tion may  be  best  illustrated  by  what  takes  place 
in  a  human  family.  A  child  worthy  of  the  name 
cherishes  and  practises  the   virtues  belonging  to 


THE    EUCHARIST.  41 

early  life  for  their  sake  and  for  his  own  sake, 
because  he  believes  and  feels  their  intrinsic  fitness. 
He  also  perforins  certain  services,  errands,  commis- 
sions, for  his  father,  and  he  may  not  always  know 
their  meaning;  yet,  whether  he  knows  it  or  not, 
such  offices  are  intrinsically  fitting  to  the  relation 
between  the  father  and  the  son.  But  should  the 
father  command  any  thing  which  the  son  knows  to 
be  immoral,  or  perceives  to  be  utterly  inane  or 
foolish,  the  son  is  then  authorized  to  decline  obe- 
dience on  the  ground  of  his  father's  moral  or  men- 
tal incompetency,  or  on  the  more  respectful,  and 
perhaps  more  probable,  ground,  that  he  had  mis- 
heard or  misinterpreted  his  father's  command. 
The  point  on  which  I  would  lay  stress  is,  that  obe- 
dience to  God's  well-ascertained  and  express  com- 
mand, in  cases  where  the  fitness  is  not  at  once 
manifest,  is  still  based  on  fitness  as  appertaining 
to  the  relation  between  God  and  man. 

Moreover,  even  in  such  cases,  we  should  expect 
that  the  fitness  of  the  command  itself  would  be- 
come apparent,  and  that  we  should  thus  have  new 
and  ever  growing  evidence  of  its  genuineness. 
Thus,  to  recur  to  the  Eucharist,  which  we  do  not 
err  in  calling  virtually  of  divine  appointment,  if 
ordained  by  him  on  whom  rested  the  Spirit  of 
God  without  measure,  —  this  rite  has  ministered  so 
largely  to  Christian  edification  in  its  symbolism, 


42  THE   GROUND   OF  RIGHT. 

is  so  apt  as  regards  the  family  of  disciples  united 
at  the  same  table,  and  has  such  hallowed  associa- 
tions accumulated  from  age  to  age,  that  the  Church 
would  continue  to  observe  it  for  its  spiritual  worth 
and  efficacy,  even  were  biblical  critics  unanimous 
in  maintaining  that  Christ  never  meant  to  extend 
or  transmit  it  beyond  the  circle  of  his  immediate 
followers. 

The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  baptism.  I 
think  it  very  questionable  whether  this  rite  was, 
at  the  outset,  intended  to  be  other  than  a  token  of 
admission  to  the  Christian  Church  from  heathen- 
ism or  Judaism,  —  a  rite,  indeed,  borrowed  from 
the  Hebrew  custom  of  baptizing  proselytes  and 
their  families;  but  its  emblematic  meaning,  its 
sacred  associations  and  its  religious  impressiveness 
render  me,  at  least,  entirely  indifferent  to  any 
critical  question  as  to  its  original  design.  It  is 
altogether  too  precious  for  the  Church  ever  to 
abandon  it. 

The  observance  of  Sunday  falls,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  under  the  same  category.  The  Decalogue 
constitutes  so  perfect  a  code  of  morals,  and,  with 
the  exception  of  the  fourth  commandment,  is  so 
entirely  ethical,  that  I  am  by  no  means  disinclined 
to  regard  it  as  emanating  from  Him  from  whose 
bosom  came  Christ  and  his  gospel.  But  whether 
it  be  God's  express  command  or  not,  the  law  of 


DIVINE    REVELATION.  43 

sabbatical  observance  is  so  written  on  the  nature 
of  man,  and  of  beasts  too,  and  even  on  some  ob- 
jects that  have  neither  soul  nor  life,  that  it  could 
be  maintained  on  the  ground  of  intrinsic  fitness, 
though  the  Pentateuch  were  blown  to  the  winds. 

Think  not  that,  in  denying  the  validity  of  the 
divine  will  as  the  ground  of  right,  I  disown  or 
undervalue  revelation.  I  believe  Christianity  to 
be,  not  a  mere  development,  but  literally  a  revela- 
tion ;  that  is,  an  unveiling  of  eternal  truth,  law, 
and  right,  which,  before  and  else,  man  could  not 
fully  comprehend.  But  Christianity  has  its  evi- 
dences, external  and  internal.  The  external  evi- 
dences are  all  that  they  can  be  with  reference  to  a 
series  of  facts  that  transpired  in  a  land  and  age  so 
remote  as  Palestine  and  the  first  Christian  century, 
but  not  sufficient  to  substantiate  aught  that  would 
be  repudiated  by  sound  sense  and  right  moral  feel- 
ing. Were  the  same  amount  of  external  evidence 
offered  in  behalf  of  Epicureanism,  it  would  not 
begin  to  convince  me  that  Epicurus  was  a  Christ, 
a  divinely  anointed,  inspired,  and  endowed  mes- 
senger'from  heaven.  It  is  the  internal  evidences 
of  Christianity  that  turn  the  scale  in  its  favor; 
and  these  internal  evidences  all  consist  in  the  cor- 
respondence of  Christ's  teachings  and  life  with  the 
fitnesses  of  nature  and  of  human  life,  many  of  which 
fitnesses  come  to  our  knowledge  through  him,  but 


44  THE  GROUND   OF  RIGHT. 

all  of  which  are  self-verifying.  Now,  if  we  aban- 
don our  ground  of  fitness,  we  have  no  remaining 
test:  the  internal  evidences  of  Christianity  are 
neutralized,  and  there  can  be  no  alleged  command 
of  God  for  which  it  could  be  possible  to  adduce 
the  least  shadow  of  evidence  that  it  comes  from 
him.  If  we  are  not  to  trust  our  natural  sense  of 
the  fitness  of  things,  we  have  no  good  reason  for 
doubting  that  God  commanded  all  the  atrocities 
and  barbarities  which  the  Hebrews  committed  in 
his  name.  Cudworth,  the  greatest  among  modern 
ethical  philosophers,  goes  so  far  as  to  charge  with 
atheism  those  who  make  the  divine  will  the  stand- 
ard of  right:  for,  as  he  says,  there  is  a  natural 
right  which  man  is  capable  of  understanding  and 
recognizing  ;  it  exists  in  the  nature  of  things,  inde- 
pendently of  the  Creator;  it  must  exist  of  neces- 
sity, if  there  be  any  being;  and  the  God  who  could 
transgress  it,  and  could  do  or  command  what  is 
intrinsically  unfitting,  would  not  fill  out  any  ra- 
tional conception  of  God,  —  would  be  no  God  in 
the  sense  which  we  necessarily  attach  to  that 
term. 

It  follows  from  what  I  have  said  in  comparing 
these  two  alleged  grounds  of  right,  that  morality 
exists,  in  a  certain  sense  and  measure,  independ- 
ently of  religion.  That  they  are  most  intimately 
and  helpfully  allied,  I  hope  to  show  you  in  a  subse- 


ADAM    SMITH'S    THEORY.  45 

qnent  lecture.  If  they  were  identical,  as  they  are 
sometimes  affirmed  to  be,  they  could  not  be  allied; 
for  alliance  implies  duality.  I  may  perceive  un- 
numbered fitnesses  of  things  without  worshiping 
or  owning  Him  through  whose  providence  it  is,  as 
I  believe,  that  "all  things  are  double,  one  against 
another,"  so  that  "  one  thing  establisheth  the  good 
of  another."  I  may  observe  these  fitnesses  in  my 
conduct  without  being  a  religious  man.  An  athe- 
ist may  be  a  rigidly  moral  man  in  the  entire  sphere 
of  his  earthly  relations ;  for  there  is  no  reason  why 
he  may  not  discern  their  fitnesses,  and  he  is  capable 
of  governing  his  conduct  by  them,  though,  in  his 
destitution  of  the  highest  and  strongest  motives 
for  their  observance,  he  is  in  such  imminent  danger 
of  ignoring  them,  that,  while  there  have  been  in- 
dividual atheists  of  blameless  lives,  there  never 
has  been  an  extended  ascendency  of  atheism  in 
any  nation,  community,  or  class  of  men,  without 
its  being  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  decline 
of  goodness,  and  growth  of  vice  and  crime. 

I  would  next  speak  of  Adam .  Smith's  theory  of 
morals.  He  maintains  that  sympathy  is  the  sole 
ground,  standard,  and  criterion  of  the  Right.  The 
trait  of  another's  character  or  the  act  or  conduct 
of  another  which  commands  our  entire  sympathy 
is  virtuous ;  that  which  repels  sympathy,  and  pro- 
vokes antipathy,  is  vicious.     The  trait  in  our  own 


46  THE  GROUND   OF  RIGHT. 

character,  or  the  act  or  mode  of  conduct,  in  which 
we  feel  sure  of  the  sympathy  of  those  around  us, 
is  virtuous ;  that  in  which  we  know  that  we  have 
not  their  sympathy  is  vicious.  The  degree  of  sym- 
pathy or  of  antipathy  in  each  case  measures  the 
degree  of  excellence  or  of  turpitude. 

The  most  obvious  criticism  on  this  system  is,  that 
it  makes  our  sense  of  right  a  superficial  organ,  like 
the  stomach  in  some  classes  of  zoophytes.  We 
must  resort  to  society  to  know  whether  our  acts 
are  right.  In  practice,  however,  the  test  would 
be  purely  subjective ;  for,  while  we  might  measure 
the  acts  of  all  others  by  our  own  sympathy,  for 
ourselves  we  should  look  far  for  sympathy  if  we 
could  not  find  it  near,  and  to  coming  time  if  we 
could  not  find  it  in  our  own  time.  This  Smith 
virtually  admits ;  for  he  says  that  we  should  some- 
times have  to  resort  for  our  imaginary  spectators 
to  remote  posterity.  But  it  is  certain,  that,  though 
men  in  advance  of  their  time  often  thus  appeal  to 
the  better  judgment  of  a  more  enlightened  future, 
they  do  not  dive  at  the  outset  into  the  future,  to 
take  counsel  of  the  unborn  as  to  what  they  shall 
do,  or  dare,  or  suffer.  If  sympathy  be  really  the 
ground  of  right,  it  must  be  an  active,  real,  present, 
audible  sympathy ;  and  were  this  the  criterion  of 
virtue,  I  know  not  how  there  could  be  any  prog- 
ress in  goodness,  or  any  instances  of  advanced, 


SYMPATHY,    AN    UNSAFE    STANDARD.      47 

heroic  virtue.  Wilberforce  found  no  sympathy  at 
the  outset  of  his  assault  on  the  slave-trade,  but 
only  the  antipathy  of  the  best  men  in  Church  and 
State.  Had  actual  sympathy  been  the  sole  crite- 
rion of  right,  slavery  would  have  been  perpetual ; 
for  there  have  been  periods  when  universal  opinion 
and  feeling  have  been  in  its  favor.  This  was  the 
case  at  the  Christian  era  ;  but  Christian  sentiment 
became  enlisted  against  it,  and  it  gradually 
declined,  till  in  what  seemed  the  depth  of  the 
(so-called)  dark  ages  —  during  which,  however, 
there  were  intense  day-beams  from  the  Sun  of 
righteousness,  though  the  light  of  classic  civiliza- 
tion had  been  quenched  —  there  came  a  time  when 
there  was  not  a  domestic  slave  in  Christendom. 
But  the  discovery  of  America  gave  slavery  a  new, 
lease  of  life ;  and  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century 
it  again  had  universal  opinion  in  its  favor,  so  that 
Wilberforce,  when  he  started  on  his  career,'  knew 
not  that  he  had  any  sympathy  this  side  of  heaven. 
But  were  we  to  admit  that  sympathy  is  a  safe 
and  sufficient  moral  standard,  what  authority  has 
it  ?  It  is  but  one  of  human  instincts,  perhaps  not 
the  noblest.  There  is  no  reason  why  one  instinct 
should  have  supremacy  over  the  rest.  They  are, 
all  of  them,  parts  of  human  nature,  all  of  them 
legitimate  within  fit  restraint  and  in  clue  equilib- 
rium ;  and  because  they  are  "instincts,  they  all  need 


48  THE  GROUND   OF  BIGHT. 

control,  sympathy  no  less  than  the  rest.  Indeed, 
there  are  communities  and  conditions  of  society, 
in  which  sympathy  is  the  most  prolific  source  of 
moral  depravity.  I  doubt  whether  sympathy  could 
have  been  a  safe  criterion  in  Sodom ;  and  it  may 
help  to  explain  the  moral  derelictions  of  Lot,  who 
seems,  in  the  scriptural  story,  to  have  brought 
away  from  the  doomed  city  very  little  of  the 
heritage  of  patriarchal  virtue  and  piety  that  he 
carried  to  it. 

It  should  be  remarked  here,  that  Smith  urges  as 
an  argument  for  his  theory,  that,  in  point  of  fact, 
men  do  normally  sympathize  with  all  that  is  good, 
and  are  normally  in  antipathy  against  all  that  is 
evil.  But  were  this  true  absolutely  and  univer- 
sally, would  not  this  very  fact  imply  some  other 
and  higher  criterion  of  right?  It  is  merely  a 
senseless  truism,  to  say  that  whatever  commands 
sympathy  is  right,  and  whatever  is  right  com- 
mands sympathy. 

There  are  some  systems  that  virtually  annul 
moral  obligation.  This,  as  I  showed  you  in  my 
last  lecture,  is  the  case  with  necessarianism.  It  is 
equally  so  with  mysticism,  which,  as  it  has  borne 
so  large  a  part  in  the  history  of  religion,  may 
merit  special  consideration  in  its  ethical  bearings. 
Mysticism  rests  on  two  principles,  one  an  indubit- 
able truth,  the  other  a  baseless  assumption.     The 


MYSTICISM.  49 

truth  is  one  which  is  a  prophecy  of  immortality, 
namely,  that  man  is  conscious  of  fitnesses  for  an 
immeasurably  higher  destiny  than  he  can  attain 
in  this  world, — a  consciousness  common  to  all  men 
of  lofty  aims,  and  growing  upon  them  faster  than 
they  can  grow,  so  that  it  is  the  greatest  minds  and 
the  noblest  characters  that  feel  the  farthest  from 
their  ultimate  perfection.  This  consciousness  is  a 
tonic  to  the  moral  nature,  energizes  and  intensifies 
every  power  and  faculty,  and  urges  one  on  in 
every  way  of  duty,  selfward,  manward,  Godward. 
But  to  this  has  been  added  by  mystics  the  delu- 
sive assumption,  that  what  little  can  be  attained, 
what  small  amount  of  good  can  be  secured,  in  this 
earthly  life,  can  be  the  result  only  of  concentrated 
devotion,  —  of  a  mind  secluded  from  all  earthly 
cares  and  interests,  and  wholly  absorbed  in  the 
contemplation  of  divine  and  heavenly  things. 
God  is  the  supreme  good,  heaven  is  the  soul's 
only  fitting  home  ;  and  all  earthly  duty  divides 
the  soul  from  God,  and  shuts  out  heaven  from  the 
thoughts.  The  error  consists  in  forgetting  that 
there  may  be  a  latent  sense  of  the  divine  pres- 
ence, even  though  the  thought  be  not  expressly 
formulated  at  every  moment,  as  there  is  on  the 
part  of  the  little  child  a  latent  consciousness  of 
his  mother's  shielding  presence,  as  real  and  vital 
when  he  is  busy  with  his  picture-book  or  his  toys 

) 


50  TEE  GROUND   OF  EIGHT. 

as  when  he  nestles  in  her  arms ;  and  that  one  may 
approach  nearer  heaven  when  breathing  its  spirit 
in  faithful  duty  and  in  diffusive  charity  than 
when  he  is  musing,  or  talking,  or  singing  about 
heaven. 

Mysticism,  of  course,  throws  all  active  duty 
into  the  background,  and  disclaims  all  sense  of 
obligation  with  regard  to  it.  It  takes  two  direc- 
tions. It  has  for  the  most  part  led  to  a  life 
sheltered  from  the  world's  life,  and  divorced  from 
its  responsibilities,  fervently  devout,  and  in  a  neg- 
ative aspect  severely  virtuous.  The  extremists 
of  fanatical  devotion,  such  as  the  pillar-saints  and 
the  monks  of  the  Thebaid,  come  under  this 
description  ;  and  probably  there  are  still  members 
of  monastic  orders,  especially  nuns  of  the  more 
rigid  disciplines,  who  are  sincere  and  devout 
mystics. 

But  there  have  been  periods,  as  at  the  era  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation,  when  mysticism  by  a  de- 
praved logic  has  developed  itself  in  revolting  types 
of  immorality,  especially  in  unrestrained  sensual 
indulgence.  The  reasoning  has  been  in  this  wise. 
It  is  so  little  that  we  can  do  for  ourselves  in  this 
world,  that  it  is  no  matter  what  we  do.  What  we 
call  good  acts  are  so  defaced  by  indwelling  sin, 
and  so  far  beneath  the  standard  of  the  divine 
approval,  that  they  differ  only  infinitesimally  from 


TWO    CLASSES    OF   MYSTICS.  51 

what  are  termed  immoral  acts.  If,  then,  we  can 
do  nothing  here  to  win  heaven,  there  can  be  no 
need  of  our  bridling  our  appetites  or  our  lusts. 
It  will  be  all  the  same  with  us  in  the  sight  of  God. 
Spiritually  we  can  meditate  and  pray  so  long  as 
the  mind  can  bear  the  strain  ;  and  when  the  over- 
bent  bow  must  relax,  let  the  string  be  untied,  and 
let  us  yield  ourselves  to  whatever  our  natural 
desires  may  prompt. 

Historically,  mysticism  has  given  the  world 
some  of  the  loftiest  types  of  piety  and  devotion : 
from  the  pens  of  mystics  such  as  Thomas  &  Kem- 
pis,  Tauler,  Fenelon,  Madame  de  Guion,  we  have 
had  manuals  of  contemplative  religion  and  of  the 
interior  life  of  faith  and  love,  by  the  loss  of  which 
the  world's  religious  literature  would  be  sadly  im- 
poverished ;  and  yet  even  in  their  writings,  there 
are  marvellous  deficiencies.  Thus,  you  might  read 
through  "The  Imitation  of  Christ"  by  Thomas  a 
Kempis,  without  learning  from  it  that  there  is  such 
an  institution  as  the  home  or  the  family,  or  such  a 
relation  as  that  of  husband  and  wife,  parent  and 
child,  brother  and  sister ;  'while  yet  the  book  bears 
the  name  of  Him  whose  divine  humanity  gave  a 
special  sanction  and  blessing  to  home-life,  nay,  to 
whom  we  owe  the  home  worthy  of  the  name.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  were  sects  of  mystics,  like 
the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  and  some  bodies 


52  THE  GROUND   OF  RIGHT. 

of   antinomian   Anabaptists,  whose   immoral   ex- 
cesses were  too  loathsome  for  recital. 

Another  system,  religious  in  form,  which  leaves 
morality  without  being  and  the  Right  without  a 
ground,  is  pantheism.  The  pantheist  denies  the 
separate,  detached  existence  of  any  being  or  object. 
Nature  and  man  are,  physically,  manifestations  of 
God  in  space ;  man  is,  mentally  and  spiritually, 
the  thought  of  God.  As  the  one  blast  of  the 
organ-bellows  may  fill  a  thousand  unlike  pipes, 
and  pour  itself  out  in  a  thousand  tones  of  every 
variety  of  compass  and  quality,  so  does  the  all- 
pervading  Spirit  become  multiform  in  the  vast 
diversity  of  outward  objects  which  have  their  be- 
ing in  him  alone,  and  many-voiced  in  the  unnum- 
bered modes  of  mental  and  moral  activity  which 
he  inspires.  All  that  is  being  literally  but  "  the 
varied  God,"  there  can  be  nothing,  whether  of  out- 
ward nature  or  of  humanity,  which  is  not  good 
with  reference  to  its  place  and  purpose  in  the 
divine  totality.  What  seems  evil  seems  so  only 
because  we,  being  ourselves  but  parts  of  God,  can 
see  but  in  part,  and  cannot  discern  the  relations 
which  each  part  bears  to  the  whole.  As  a  sink  or 
a  drain  viewed  by  itself  is  unsightly  and  noisome, 
while  in  a  sumptuous  palace  in  which  cleanliness 
and  salubrity  are  essential  it  has  its  full  part  in 
the  perfectness  and  beauty  of  the  edifice,  so  does 


PANTHEISM.  53 

the  character  or  the  deed  which  seems  to  us  most 
foul  and  detestable  because  we  cannot  see  it  in 
all  its  relations  and  fitnesses,  bear  an  essential  part 
in  the  totality  of  divine  manifestation  and  expres- 
sion, and  as  such  ceases  to  be  evil,  or  to  merit 
reproach  or  reprehension. 

Pantheism  has  two  widely  opposite  types.  One 
we  might  call  hypertheism  ;  the  other  is  little  more 
than  a  euphemistic  term  for  atheism.  The  former 
represents  God  as,  in  essence,  a  spirit  eternal,  all- 
wise,  almighty,  who  clothes  himself  in  the  forms 
of  nature,  and  enshrines  himself  in  all  intelligent 
souls,  those  forms  being  but  the  outraying  of  his 
omnipresence,  those  souls  but  receptacles  of  his 
thought.  This  was  the  conception  of  Spinoza, 
who  was  almost  a  mystic  in  the  intensity  of  his 
devotion,  and  whose  philosophy  is  the  outcome  of 
a  mind  so  filled  with  the  thought  of  God,  that  it 
could  not  conceive  of  being  except  as  identical 
with  God.  Schleiermacher,  though  a  devout  Chris- 
tian, was  a  pantheist  of  this  type.  Indeed,  mys- 
ticism always  tends  to  run  into  pantheism.  In 
fact,  they  are  each  other's  feeders. 

The  other  type  of  pantheism  resolves  the  con- 
ception of  God  into  that  of  a  material  universe, 
self-endowed  with  tendencies  which  evolved  from 
chaos,  successively,  form,  order,  organism,  life, 
soul,  thought,  aspiration.     This    universe   in   the 


54  THE  GROUND   OF  EIG11T. 

beginning  possessed  mere  automatic  force,  an  on- 
ward and  upward  nisus,  a  dumb  yearning,  an  un- 
conscious striving  for  an  ever  fuller  and  higher 
development.  In  man  it  first  attained  self-con- 
sciousness, multiform  and  nowhere  concentrated, 
in  its  totality  pure  and  perfect,  though  in  its  parts, 
taken  by  themselves,  imperfect,  and  because  of 
this  imperfection  presenting  the  phenomena  which 
we  term  wrong  and  evil.  This  is  the  type  of  pan- 
theism which  has  been  most  extensive  and  prev- 
alent in  the  German  philosophy. 

Pantheism  in  either  form  involves  necessarian- 
ism,  and  manifestly  furnishes  no  ground  of  right, 
and  thus  no  hold  for  moral  obligation. 


LECTURE   III. 

UTILITARIANISM  AND   EXPEDIENCY. 

I  propose  to-day  to  discuss  the  several  forms 
of  utilitarianism,  and  the  ethical  position  which 
rightfully  belongs  to  expediency  or  utility.  There 
might  seem  at  first  thought  a  wide  distinction  be- 
tween the  merely  selfish  and  the  more  broadly  util- 
itarian theory, — between  that  which  makes  one's 
interest,  pleasure,  or  happiness  his  sole  standard 
of  right,  and  that  which  assumes  for  its  standard 
the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number ; 
but  we  shall  find  that  they  rest  on  the  same  foun- 
dation, —  that  the  utilitarian  regards  general  be- 
neficence as  the  dictate  and  the  outcome  of  an 
enlightened  self-love. 

We  will  consider,  first,  the  purely  selfish  theory. 
According  to  this,  the  desire  of  pleasure,  of  happi- 
ness, of  well-being,  is  inherent  in  and  inseparable 
from  human  nature,  and  must  lie  at  the  basis  of 
every  volition.  Will  is  but  desire  made  active, 
and  desire  implies  a  conception  of  something  by 
which  one's  pleasure   or   happiness   may   be   iu- 

55 


56       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

creased.  A  desire  which  means  less  or  other  than 
this  is  inconceivable.  If  I  am  seemingly  benefi- 
cent to  my  own  injury,  it  is  because  I  expect 
greater  pleasure  from  the  exercise  of  sympathy, 
or  from  the  gratitude  of  the  person  benefited,  or 
from  a  reputation  for  generosity,  than  I  lose  by  de- 
nying myself  what  I  bestow.  If  I  die  for  the  True 
and  the  Right,  it  is  because  I  anticipate  in  heaven 
a  recompense  far  exceeding  the  earthly  good  that 
I  shall  forego.  Disinterested  action  is  utterly  im- 
possible ;  for  one  cannot  cease  to  be  his  own  well* 
wisher,  still  less  can  he  be  his  own  ill-wisher, 
which  he  must  be  if  he  willingly  diminishes  his 
own  sum  of  happiness  or  well-being.  What,  then, 
is  virtue,  according  to  this  theory  ?  It  is  simply 
prudence, — a  clear-seeing,  deep-seeing,  judicious 
self-interest,  —  the  choice  of  that  which  will  con- 
fer pleasure  or  happiness,  the  largest  in  quantity, 
the  best  in  quality,  and  the  most  enduring,  —  the 
readiness  to  give  up  less  pleasure  for  more,  lower 
for  higher,  shorter  for  longer. 

What  obligation  is  there,  under  this  system,  to 
the  practice  of  virtue  ?  None  whatever,  except 
that  under  which  a  man  is  bound  to  eat  his 
dinner,  to  quench  his  thirst,  to  cure  his  head- 
ache, —  an  obligation  beginning,  centring,  and 
ending  in  himself,  —  an  obligation  in  which  he  is 
both  debtor  and  creditor,  and  from  which  he  cer- 


INSTINCTIVE  TENDENCIES.  57 

tainly  has  the  same  right  to  release  himself  that 
he  lias  to  stay  away  from  an  entertainment  which 
he  would  enjoy  if  he  is  too  lazy  to  go  to  it, 
or  to  omit  some  coveted  indulgence  because  he 
grudges  the  cost.  If  my  happiness  is  my  standard 
of  right,  I  am  certainly  entitled  to  make  at  my 
pleasure  a  selection  from  the  various  means  of 
happiness ;  and  if  I  make  a  bad  choice,  I  am  ac- 
countable to  myself  alone.  Indeed,  by  this  theory 
I  cannot  make  a  bad  choice ;  for  my  desire  is  my 
only  law,  and  I  cannot  choose  what  I  do  not  de- 
sire. 

The  first  thing  to  be  said  as  to  this  theory  is 
that  volition  is  not  always  desire,  —  that  it  fre- 
quently has  no  reference  whatever  to  the  future, 
and  therefore  no  reference  to  pain  to  be  avoided, 
or  pleasure  to  be  obtained.  The  instinctive  ten- 
dencies prompt  the  greater  part  of  the  volitions, 
and  thus  of  the  voluntary  acts  of  children,  and  of 
men  and  women  of  a  low  mental  and  moral  type, 
and  a  very  large  part  of  the  volitions  and  volun- 
tary acts  of  all  of  us.  Now,  in  gratifying  these 
tendencies  we  do  not  cater  for  the  future :  we 
merely  yield,  of  our  own  accord,  to  an  impelling 
force  which  we  are  consciously  able  to  resist.  I 
do  not  eat  because  I  expect  to  feel  the  better  for 
it  an  hour  or  a  day  hence,  but  because  I  have  an 
appetite  now ;  and  very  probably,  if  I  am  a  con- 


58       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

firmed  dyspeptic,  and  know  that  I  am  going  to 
suffer  pain  much  more  severe  than  hunger  in  con- 
sequence of  my  eating  the  food  before  me,  I  shall 
eat  all  the  same.  These  instinctive  tendencies 
may  be  best  understood  by  comparing  them  with 
a  scourge.  Let  a  scourge  be  laid  severely  on  a 
man's  shoulders,  he  is  able  to  stand  still ;  but  he 
will  probably  choose  to  run,  though  he  knows 
that  the  man  who  is  whipping  him  can  run  as  fast 
as  he  can.  Men  are  perpetually  willing  under 
strong  impulse,  while  they  know  that  they  are 
capable  of  willing  otherwise,  and  that  what  they 
will  is  to  their  misery,  their  harm,  their  peril,  per- 
haps their  ruin. 

Then,  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  scale,  there 
are  nobler  impulses,  instincts  of  a  higher  order, 
which  one  obeys  without  counting  the  cost,  and 
which  one  never  would  obey  did  he  stop  to  count 
the  cost.  It  is  not  in  character  for  a  good  man  to 
say  to  himself  when  he  performs  a  worthy  deed, 
"  This  is  going  to  accrue  to  my  profit,"  nor  yet  for 
him,  in  forming  some  habit  of  virtuous  conduct,  to 
say  to  himself,  "  This  habit  is  going  to  contribute 
essentially  to  my  ease,  or  gain,  or  popularity.1'  It 
was  not  from  any  calculation  or  expectation  of 
happiness  on  earth  or  in  heaven  that  Howard 
spent  what  would  have  been  the  sunny  days  of  an 
affluent  life  in  prisons  and  pest-houses.     Epictetus 


SELF-INTEREST.  59 

did  not  even  believe  in  immortality ;  but  no  one 
can  doubt  that  if  he,  being  the  man  that  he  was, 
had  had  his  choice  between  loyalty  to  the  Right 
and  death  on  the  one  side,  and  a  life  full  of  all 
things  desirable,  with  a  single  falsehood  or  fraud  or 
impurity,  on  the  other,  he  would  have  chosen  the 
former,  and  thus  in  his  own  belief  have  leaped 
out  of  being,  and  so  out  of  all  possibility  of  pleas- 
ure, happiness,  or  good.  But  this  certainly  would 
not  be  the  dictate  of  self-interest  rightly  under- 
stood, which  has  its  most  authentic  utterance  in 
those  words  in  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes :  "  Be  not 
righteous  over-much  ;  why  shouldest  thou  destroy 
thyself?"  while  it  would  undoubtedly  add,  as  re- 
gards any  excess  in  sensual  pleasure,  "  Be  not 
wicked  over-much  ;  why  shouldest  thou  die  before 
thy  time  ?  "  In  fine,  the  truly  virtuous  man 
does  not,  any  more  than  the  angry  man  or  the 
drunkard,  look  carefully  into  his  own  future  be- 
fore he  wills  each  separate  act,  nor  yet  is  it  in  this 
way  that  he  forms  virtuous  habits ;  for  it  is  noto- 
riously true,  that  a  man  who  begins  in  his  youth  to 
calculate  the  recompense  of  the  good  he  does,  and 
to  look  out  for  his  wages,  whether  in  gain,  pleas- 
ure, or  praise,  before  he  performs  a  right  act, 
never  becomes  greatty  guod,  hardly  ever,  even 
moderately  good  ;  and  I  have  known  not  a  few  of 
these  self-seeking  youths,  who    in    the   judgment 


60        UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

of  others,  though  not  in  mine,  promised  fair  be- 
cause they  behaved  so  well,  who  have  quite  early 
deserted  to  the  opposite  camp  where  the  pay 
seemed  better  because  it  came  sooner.  Longfel- 
low's ballad  of  "Excelsior,"  which  has  been  so 
foully  bespattered  by  parodies  and  travesties  as  to 
make  the  very  word  almost  laughable,  yet  which 
is  really  one  of  the  grandest  poems  ever  written,  is 
a  summary  of  the  true  philosophy  of  virtuous  ac- 
tion. It  symbolizes  the  life-path  of  the  genuinely 
good  man,  who  pursues  his  way,  not  for  the  joys 
of  the  way,  but  because  it  is  the  way,  and  it  is  not 
in  him  to  halt  on  it,  or  to  turn  aside  from  it. 

I  would,  in  the  next  place,  maintain  that  on  the 
selfish  theory  virtue  is  not  even  a  distinct  and 
definite  quality  of  -character.  It  is  maintained 
that  every  man,  by  his  every  volition,  seeks  to 
better  himself,  —  to  promote  his  own  pleasure, 
happiness,  or  well-being.  A  does  this  by  getting 
drunk;  B,  by  breasting  cold  and  storm  on  some 
philanthropic  errand.  Each,  according  to  the  the- 
ory, supposes  that  he  is  doing  the  best  thing 
possible  for  himself;  and  I  know  not  why  the  one 
is  in  the  least  a  better  man  than  the  other.  The 
difference  is  not  of  motive  or  of  principle,  but 
merely  of  knowledge,  judgment,  wisdom.  If  B 
were  no  wiser  than  A,  yet  without  being  a  worse 
man,  he  would  stay  at  home,  and  drink  himself 


THE  SELFISH   THEORY.  61 

into  a  fatuous  slumber.  If  A  were  as  wise  as  B, 
yet  without  being  a  better  man  than  he  is,  he 
would  start  off  in  the  cold  to  carry  comfort  to 
some  home  of  sickness  or  poverty.  By  this  the- 
ory, virtue  is  a  matter  of  necessity,  not  of  choice. 
A  man  cannot  but  consult  his  own  happiness  and 
well-being  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge.  He  has 
no  choice.  His  belief  for  the  time  being  deter- 
mines his  action.  He  is  at  no  moment  free  to 
elect  one  of  two  courses. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  fitness  be  the  standard  of 
right,  a  man  has  the  power  of  choice.  That  which 
accords  with  the  fitness  of  tilings  may  be  opposed 
to  his  interest,  so  far  as  he  can  see  or  know,  —  as 
in  the  case  of  the  martyr  for  principle  who  lacks 
clear  and  full  assurance  of  immortality,  and  who, 
therefore,  is  conscious  only  of  loss  and  sacrifice, 
and  equally,  as  I  trust  we  all  know  from  experi- 
ence, in  cases  in  which  we  have  done  what 
seemed  fitting  and  therefore  right  with  the  dis- 
tinct consciousness  of  self-denial. 

Still  further,  the  selfish  theory  precludes  the 
possibility  of  merit  for  a  good  act,  and  leaves  a 
bad  act  without  any  liability  to  blame.  If  the 
best  thing  that  a  man  can  do  is  to  consult  his  own 
happiness,  can  there  be  any  thing  blameworthy  in 
the  inevitable  ignorance  which  leads  a  man  to 
seek  happiness  in  a  wrong  way?     If  self-interest 


62       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

be  the  essence  of  virtue,  is  not  he  who  caters  fur 
his  own  happiness  in  the  best  way  he  knows, 
though  it  be  a  sordid  and  squalid  way,  virtuous 
to  the  full  extent  of  his  ability  ?  and  would  he  not 
forsake  the  only  virtue  attainable  by  him,  if  he 
practised  temperance,  honesty,  or  beneficence,  with 
a  consciousness  of  sacrifice  ?  I  cannot  escape  these 
conclusions  from  the  selfish  theory ;  and  were  not 
men  wont  to  have  a  heart-faith  better  than  their 
professed  belief,  I  could  have  no  more  confidence 
in  the  moral  purity  or  integrity  of  a  man  who 
held  this  theory  than  in  that  of  a  notorious  de- 
bauchee, swindler,  or  liar. 

Epicurus  gave  his  name  to  this  system  as  it  was 
maintained  in  classic  times.  He  flourished  about 
three  centuries  before  the  Christian  era.  He  was 
himself  a  man  of  simple  tastes  and  virtuous  life, 
and  so  were  many  of  his  disciples ;  while  his  was 
the  favorite  philosophy  of  men  of  loose  principles 
and  profligate  lives,  until  the  old  civilization  was 
entirely  submerged  by  the  in-rush  of  Northern 
barbarians.  The  licentious  poems  of  Horace  and 
Ovid  are  in  entire  harmony,  if  not  with  the  original 
intent,  with  the  inevitable  trend  of  Epicureanism. 
According  to  Epicurus,  there  is  no  essential  differ- 
ence in  acts,  which  would  make  one  sort  of  acts 
preferable  to  their  opposites.  Their  pleasure-yield- 
ing capacity  furnishes  the  only  standard  by  which 


HOBBES.  63 

they  are  to  be  estimated.  If  unrestrained  sensual 
indulgence  would  yield  the  maximum  of  pleasure, 
it  would  be  virtue  and  duty.  The  only  reason 
for  moderating  one's  appetites  is,  that  the  pleasure 
derived  from  them  will  thus  last  the  longer.  Epi- 
curus distinguishes  between  active  and  passive 
pleasure.  Action  has  its  re-action.  The  sense  of 
satiety  is  a  painful  offset  to  free  indulgence.  But 
rest  does  not  cloy.  Repose  always  satisfies.  There- 
fore the  acme  of  practical  wisdom,  and  thus  of 
virtue,  is  attained  by  him  who  floats  on  the  current 
of  life  with  the  least  possible  disturbance,  without 
thought  for  others,  with  personal  habits  that  in- 
volve the  minimum  of  effort,  and  expose  him  to 
the  minimum  of  disappointment  and  annoyance. 

In  modern  times,  Hobbes,  the  earliest  English 
ethical  writer  of  any  celebrity,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  revived  the  philosophy  of  Epicu- 
rus, though  in  an  altered  and  a  very  peculiar 
form.  He  was  a  stanch  royalist,  and  had  the 
utmost  horror  of  republicanism  and  puritanism, 
having  lived  through  the  period  of  the  Common- 
wealth, and  having  had  an  eye  only  for  its  repulsive 
aspects.  His  philosophy  is  a  blending  of  absolut- 
ism in  politics  with  selfishness  in  morals.  Accord- 
ing to  him,  all  men  are  by  nature  and  of  necessity 
supremely  selfish.  In  the  ignorant  infancy  of 
society,  men  naturally  prey  upon  one  another,  and 


64       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

promiscuous  internecine  war  is  the  inevitable 
consequence.  The  first  practical  truth  that  they 
learn  is,  that  under  this  condition  of  things  no 
man  can  secure  to  himself  the  well-being  which 
is  every  man's  legitimate  aim.  Submission  to  the 
most  powerful  is  the  next  step.  But  power  is 
most  forceful  when  concentrated.  Hence  absolute 
monarchy  is  by  common  consent  made  the  refuge 
from  intolerable  anarchy.  Passive  obedience  be- 
comes the  interest,  and  therefore  the  duty,  of  the 
individual  subject,  —  an  obedience  extending  to 
whatever  the  supreme  power  may  enact  or  com- 
mand. As  religion,  with  its  supernatural  sanc- 
tions, is  an  efficient  instrument  in  preserving  the 
peace  and  order  of  society,  —  yet  this,  only  if 
there  be  uniformity  of  belief  and  practice,  without 
which  religion  is  an  element  of  discord,  —  con- 
formity with  the  sovereign's  religion  is  for  every 
man's  interest,  and  is  therefore  every  man's  duty. 
This  system,  you  will  perceive,  while  retaining 
the  name,  eliminates  the  reality  of  duty ;  for  if  a 
man  is  to  obejr  the  king  and  conform  to  him  solely 
for  his  own  interest,  it  cannot  be  his  duty  any 
longer  than  he  believes  it  to  be  for  his  interest. 
But  he  cannot  control  his  opinions.  He  may 
regard  revolt,  rebellion,  revolution,  as  for  his  in- 
terest, and  in  that  case  it  must  be  his  duty ;  for 
the  general  order,  peace,  security,  is  not  his  con- 


PALEY.  m        •  65 

cern,  —  he  has  only  himself  to  care  for.  Virtue 
is  also  eliminated.  For  the  loyal  subject  all  duty  is 
comprehended  in  obedience.  What  is  commanded 
is  virtue  ;  what  is  forbidden  is  vice.  Virtue,  then, 
has  no  fixed  definition,  no  uniform  characteristics. 
What  is  virtue  in  one  country  is  vice  in  another. 
Polygamy  is  as  virtuous  in  Turkey  as  monogamy 
in  England  ;  and  as  for  Utah,  the  moral  character 
of  the  cherished  domestic  institution  of  the  Mor- 
mons is  a  question  between  the  national  authority 
and  Territorial  rights.  The  system,  in  fine,  merits 
this  passing  notice,  only  because  Hobbes  is  a  great 
name  in  English  literature  and  philosophy,  and 
one  deservedly  honored  for  affluent  learning,  cogent 
reasoning  (for  it  is  his  premises,  never  his  conclu- 
sions, that  are  at  fault),  and  evident  honesty  and 
integrity  of  purpose. 

From  Hobbes  to  Paley  we  pass  over  an  interval 
of  a  century  and  a  half,  and  find  the  selfish  theory 
in  a  greatly  modified  form,  and  with  what  seems 
to  be,  though  put  on  in  perfect  good  faith,  a  very 
thin  veneering  of  Christianity.  Paley's  ethical 
philosophy  is  all  comprised  in  his  definition  of 
virtue,  — "  The  doing  good  to  mankind,  in  obe- 
dience to  the  will  of  God,  for  the  sake  of  ever- 
lasting happiness."  This  definition  in  its  first 
part  seems  like  the  broader  type  of  utilitarianism  ; 
but  the  last  clause  brings  it  down  to  pure  selfish- 


66       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

ness.  We  are  to  do  good  to  others,  not  for  their 
sake,  but  for  our  own.  All  that  I  have  said  about 
Hobbes  applies  here,  with  very  slight  modification. 
If  I  am  to  do  good  for  the  promotion  of  my  own 
happiness,  I  certainly  have  the  right  to  refrain 
horn  doing  good  if  I  do  not  expect  to  be  the  hap- 
pier for  it,  and  I  have  a  right  to  do  whatever  I 
honestly  believe  to  be  conducive  to  my  happiness. 

All  parts  of  this  definition  are  faulty.  "  The 
doing  good  to  mankind  "  is  indeed  virtue,  but  not 
the  whole  of  virtue.  Temperance  and  veracity 
are  equally  virtues,  though  no  one  be  benefited  by 
them.  It  is  not  surprising  to  find  Paley  very 
loose  as  to  his  notions  of  veracity  where  falsehood 
does  no  harm ;  and  as  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles, 
he  says  that  they  can  be  honestly  subscribed  by 
a  man  who  does  not  believe  them,  unless  he  belong 
to  one  of  the  classes  of  people  which  the  parlia- 
ment that  enacted  the  subscription  meant  to  shut 
out  from  the  Church,  namely,  Papists,  Anabaptists, 
and  Puritans. 

"  Obedience  to  the  will  of  God "  is  an  inci- 
dental, not  an  essential,  part  of  virtue.  God's 
will  is  in  accordance  with  the  fitness  of  things; 
otherwise  it  would  be  of  no  obligation.  In  the 
Greek  myth,  already  referred  to,  it  was  virtue  in 
Prometheus  not  to  obey  Zeus. 

"  For  the  sake  of  everlasting  happiness  "  is  the 


VIRTUE,    NOT  SELFISH.  67 

most  objectionable  clause  of  all.  It  bears  a  close 
kindred  to  the  sordid  notions  that  used  to  prevail 
very  largely  in  the  Christian  Church  about  salva- 
tion, which  was  regarded  as  exemption  from  hell, 
not  as  deliverance  from  sin.  Men  used  to  inquire 
diligently  how  little  of  Christian  duty,  and  how  late, 
would  suffice  for  their  salvation ;  and  multitudes, 
whose  orthodoxy  was  unimpeached,  postponed  the 
question  —  as  some  of  the  early  (so-called)  Chris- 
tian emperors  postponed  baptism  —  till  it  became 
very  certain  that  there  remained  for  them  in  this 
world  no  more  u  pleasurable  sin."  If  the  win- 
ning of  heaven  be  the  sole  motive  for  doing  good 
to  men,  might  there  not  often  be  a  close  calcu- 
lation as  to  the  amount  of  beneficence  that  would 
suffice  to  win  heaven  ?  Would  not  Howard,  had 
this  been  his  motive,  have  considered  the  opportuni- 
ties of  beneficence  open  to  a  rich  English  country 
gentleman  enough  to  serve  his  turn?  Then,  too, 
what  room  for  virtue  is  there  for  those  who, 
unhappily,  do  not  believe  in  heaven,  or  for  those 
who,  more  happily,  believe  that  the  mercies  of 
heaven  are  broad  enough  to  take  in  those  who 
have  done  nothing  to  deserve  it?  Paley  has  been 
commonly  classed  as  of  the  utilitarian  rather  than 
of  the  purely  selfish  school ;  but  the  most  that 
we  can  say  of  him  is,  that  his  philosophy  marks  a 
transition  epoch. 


68       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

Bentham  may  be  taken  as  the  best  representa- 
tive of  pure  utilitarianism.  He  assumes  utility 
as  the  sole  ground  of  right,  and  defines  utility  as 
"  the  propsrty  of  any  act  to  increase  the  amount 
of  happiness,  or  to  diminish  the  amount  of  misery, 
in  the  individual,  or  the  body  of  individuals,  acted 
upon."  He  starts  with  the  selfish  axiom  that  "  it 
is  the  interest,  and  therefore  the  duty,  of  every 
individual  to  seek  the  maximum  of  happiness ; " 
and  then,  having  been  no  logician,  he  passes  on, 
without  any  intermediate  reasoning,  to  state  "  the 
greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number "  as 
the  sole  standard  and  test  of  right,  and  the  sover- 
eign rule  for  individual  conduct.  It  subsequently 
appears  that  he  reasoned  in  this  wise.  Each 
individual's  means  of  well-being  are  limited,  lia- 
ble to  be  exhausted,  liable  to  be  interfered  with 
by  others.  But  if  all  the  members  of  the  com- 
munity consult  the  good  of  all,  the  aggregate 
means  of  well-being  constitute  a  common  stock 
from  which  each  is  sure  to  receive  his  own  proper 
dividend.  Selfishness  is  thus  made  the  motive, 
nay,  the  ultimate  ground,  of  right.  The  indi- 
vidual is  to  contribute  to  the  common  good  for 
the  sake  of  his  own  share. 

Were  this  principle  fully  acted  upon,  it  would 
create  a  veritable  Utopia ;  but  it  has  no  motive 
power.     It  depends  on  selfishness,  and  selfishness 


EXPEDIENCY,   NO   SAFE  STANDARD.        69 

can  always  find  a  cheaper  way  to  its  end  than 
working  for  the  general  good.  All  systems  of 
communism  have  been  based  on  this  principle ;  and 
the  defect  in  their  working  has  been  that  individ- 
uals, having  a  right  to  their  share  of  the  proceeds 
of  the  common  labor,  have  taken  the  liberty  to 
be  idle,  or  to  be  remiss  in  their  industry.  Even 
among  the  elect  souls  that  established  Brook 
Farm,  there  were  not  a  few  hard  thoughts  about 
those  who  ate  their  full  share,  but  were  slow  to 
earn  it.  Such  experiments  have  succeeded  only 
under  two  conditions ;  namely,  when  the  govern- 
ing power  of  the  institution  has  been  a  busy 
espionage  and  an  exacting  tyranny,  and  when  re- 
ligious fanaticism  has  been  the  inspiration  of  the 
community ;  and  they  have  been  successful  with- 
out drawback  for  a  long  series  of  years,  only  when, 
as  among  the  Shakers,  these  two  conditions  have 
been  united. 

We  thus  see  that  the  utilitarian  and  the  selfish 
s}'stem  are  equally  devoid  of  any  real  ground  of 
right.  But  it  may  be  asked,  Is  there  any  practi- 
cal objection  to  deriving  duty  from  considerations 
of  expediency  ?  Must  not  the  right  and  the  ex- 
pedient always  coincide  ?  They  must,  indeed, 
under  the  righteous  government  of  the  universe. 
But  the  question  of  expediency  often  requires  for 
its   answer   a   deeper   insight,  a   broader  view,  a 


70       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

longer  foresight,  than  man  possesses.  What  seems 
expedient  now  may  be  in  time  to  come  of  harmful 
influence.  What  is  expedient  for  you  and  me 
may  be  of  mischief  for  others.  What  as  an  iso- 
lated act  might  be  expedient,  is  liable  to  be  made 
a  bad  precedent,  and  may  do  an  unspeakable 
amount  of  injury.  Above  all,  what  may  be  ex- 
pedient for  us  as  mere  citizens  of  this  world  may 
be  of  detriment  to  us  as  immortal  beings,  even  as 
we  have  reason  to  believe  that  God,  in  his  provi- 
dence, is  training  us  for  immortality  in  a  very  dif- 
ferent way  from  that  in  which  he  would  train  us 
for  an  eternal  slumber  in  the  grave.  Then,  too, 
our  appetites,  passions,  prejudices,  in  fine,  what- 
ever forms  a  part  of  our  present  selves,  must  of 
necessity  bias  more  or  less  our  judgment  of  expe- 
diency in  our  own  case ;  and  there  are  for  the  vir- 
tuously disposed  man  occasions  when  against  the 
impulse  of  strong  feeling  he  yields  to  his  sense  of 
the  fitting  and  the  right,  while  motives  of  expedi- 
ency, if  obeyed,  would  have  led  to  conduct  which 
would  have  given  him  only  unavailing  regret 
when  the  stress  of  feeling  had  subsided.  It  should 
be  added,  that,  in  the  case  of  others,  we  are  less 
likely  to  be  good  judges  of  expediency  than  in  our 
own  case ;  for  no  man  can  so  put  himself  into  an- 
other's place  as  to  see  what  is  best  for  him. 

To  test  expediency  as  a  rule  of  action,  we  will 


LIES   OF  BENEVOLENCE.  71 

try  it  under  the  head  of  veracity.  There  is,  con- 
fessedly, a  manifest  fitness  in  making  our  speech 
always  conform  to  the  fact,  our  fulfilment  to  the 
promise.  We  feel  that  speaking  the  truth,  and 
keeping  a  promise,  are  intrinsically  right.  But 
there  are  many  occasions  on  which  it  does  not 
seem  that  falsehood  can  do  harm,  many  on  which 
it  would  minister  to  the  innocent  amusement  or 
entertainment  of  the  listener,  some  certainly  on 
which  its  immediate  effect  would  be  beneficial. 
We  will  take  a  case  in  which  kindness  would  be 
the  only  possible  motive  for  falsehood,  —  the  giv- 
ing false  hopes  to  a  person  dangerously  ill,  or  de- 
ceiving him  by  too  favorable  accounts  of  some  one 
about  whom  he  is  solicitous.  If  this  is  to  be  justi- 
fied once  on  the  ground  of  expediency,  it  is  to  be 
justified  always.  If  it  is  proper  to  resort  to  it  in  a 
single  instance,  it  is  proper  to  resort  to  it  in  all  sim- 
ilar instances.  It  is,  then,  to  be  generally  under- 
stood, that  persons  who  are  very  ill  are  not  to  have 
the  truth  told  to  them.  Conversely,  every  one 
knows  that  if  he  is  very  ill  the  truth  will  be  hidden 
from  him  ;  and  this  established  custom  will  make 
every  person  who  is  seriously  ill  suspicious  of  what 
is  said  to  him,  disposed  to  fear  the  worst  when  the 
worst  is  far  from  the  truth,  and  in  utter  and  dis- 
tressing doubt  as  to  the  actual  facts  concerning 
himself,  or  concerning  the  objects  of  his  solicitude. 


72        UTILITARIANISM  AND   EXPEDIENCY. 

Thus,  the  resort  to  falsehood  could  be  of  any  effi- 
cacy only  on  account  of  its  rareness ;  while,  if 
really  expedient  in  itself,  it  would  be  so  common 
as  to  be  utterly  useless. 

Again,  is  a  falsehood  to  be  told  when  it  will 
save  us  from  great  peril  or  loss,  without  injuring 
any  other  person?  This  seems  expedient.  But 
how  great  must  be  the  harm  or  loss  to  justify  a 
lie?  Can  you  fix  any  limit?  If  for  a  cause  of 
a  certain  magnitude,  why  not  for  a  slightly  less 
cause  ?  and  if  for  that,  why  not  for  one  still  less  ? 
We  could  not  \'&y  down  any  arbitrary  rule  which 
should  determine  where  falsehood  should  cease  and 
truth  begin.  The  result  would  be,  that  we  should 
deem  it  justifiable  to  lie  whenever  we  could  derive 
the  slightest  benefit  from  it  without  doing  injury 
to  another;  and  the  reciprocal  consequence  would 
be,  that  faith  in  one  another's  veracity  would  be 
utterly  destroyed,  and  no  one's  word  as  such 
would  be  believed. 

The  question  has  been  raised  whether  a  ransom 
promised  to  a  bandit  should  be  paid,  —  a  question 
which  in  Greece  and  in  Italy  has  till  of  late  been 
a  practical  one,  and  has  not  yet  ceased  to  be  so  in 
Sicily.  Here  at  first  thought  the  breaking  of  the 
promise  might  seem  justifiable.  But  if  I  promise 
a  ransom  for  my  life,  it  is  because  I  really  regard 
my  life   as  worth   more   than    the   money  that  I 


TRUTH  IN  EXTREME  CASES.  73 

promise  to  pay  for  it:  had  I  the  money  on  the  spot, 
I  would  readily  give  it ;  so  that  I  can  make  the 
promise  in  all  good  faith,  and  the  bad  character 
of  the  promisee  cannot  make  it  void.  Other  lives 
than  my  own,  and  worth  as  much  as  mine,  will  be 
in  like  jeopardy ;  and  if  I  break  my  promise,  those 
lives  may  be  forfeited  without  being  permitted 
the  alternative  of  ransom,  —  so  that  in  this,  one  of 
the  strongest  of  cases,  the  plea  of  expediency  fails. 
But  if  1  know  that  by  falsehood  I  can  prevent 
a  great  crime,  perhaps  save  an  innocent  life,  shall 
not  expediency  prevail  over  the  rigid  rule  of  right? 
I  have  lived  a  great  many  years,  and  never  knew 
or  heard  of  such  a  case  as  actually  occurring, 
though  the  imaginary  case  has  always  been  dis- 
cussed. I  doubt  the  wisdom  of  legislating  on  the 
case  beforehand.  Should  it  occur,  a  good  man  will 
know  at  the  moment  what  he  ought  to  do  ;  and 
should  he  utter  a  falsehood  under  so  sore  a  stress, 
the  emergency  would  be  one  that  would  suggest 
and  justify  its  own  law,  without  throwing  any 
mantle  of  amnesty  or  license  over  departure  from 
the  truth  in  cases  of  less  imminent  urgency  or  peril. 
As  a  teacher  of  morals,  I  would  prefer  waiting  for 
the  occurrence  of  such  a  case  before  establishing 
any  rule  of  expediency  which,  once  laid  down, 
would  only  be  continually  warped  and  stretched 
to  suit  cases  of  greater  doubt  and  less  peril. 


74       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

The  Right,  as  I  showed  you  in  my  last  lecture, 
is  that  which  is  according  to  rule ;  and  moral  rules 
clo  not  admit  of  exceptions,  because  they  are 
founded  on  known  fitnesses.  -  It  is  admitted  that 
these  rules  apply  to  the  instances  in  which  it  is 
urged  on  the  ground  of  expediency  that  they  be  set 
aside,  —  only  it  is  claimed  that  in  this  and  that  in- 
stance they  should  be  ignored  because  they  bear 
hardly  on  individual  cases.  But  they  cannot  be  set 
aside  in  these  cases  without  creating  precedents 
which  will  be  urged,  adopted,  followed,  strained, 
applied  to  cases  more  or  less  analogous,  till  the 
exceptions  overlap  and  merge  the  rule,  and  tend 
toward  a  state  of  things  in  which  adherence  to  the 
rule  will  be  the  exception,  while  the  rule  still 
retains  its  reasonableness,  its  accordance  with  fit- 
ness, its  rightful  authority.  We  Christians  derive 
our  rules  of  right,  mediately,  from  the  teachings, 
and  still  more  from  the  life,  of  Jesus  Christ;  and 
there  is  not  one  of  these  rules,  however  wide  of  the 
practice  of  the  outside  world,  that  does  not  justify 
itself  by  its  intrinsic  fitness.  Probably  no  one  who 
has  governed  his  life  strictly  by  these  rules,  and 
has  had  his  heart  pervaded  by  their  spirit,  has  ever 
found  reason  for  repentance  or  regret ;  while  mul- 
titudes calling  themselves  Christians,  who  have 
modified  these  rules  by  expediency,  have  had  the 
personal  discomfort  of  trying  to  be  in  the  service 


OFFICE  OF  EXPEDIENCY.  75 

of  two  masters  and  succeeding  in  neither,  have  in- 
jured the  prestige  and  impaired  the  influence  of 
the  religion  which  they  wanted  to  honor,  and  have 
found  that  they  have  done  manifest  harm  where 
by  departing  from  the  rule  they  hoped  to  render 
some  office  of  kindness  or  charity. 

What  place,  then,  has  expediency?  A  most 
important,  though  a  secondary,  place.  The  word 
expediency,  in  its  near  kindred  to  expedite,  sug- 
gests the  idea  of  the  shortest  or  most  direct  way 
to  the  attainment  of  an  end.  The  term  relates  to 
ways  and  means,  not  to  ends.  The  fitting,  the 
Right,  must  be  the  uniform  characteristic  of  our 
ends,  and  must  at  the  same  time  limit  our  range 
of  choice  as  to  means.  But  there  may  be  several 
equally  right  ways  for  the  attainment  of  a  right 
end.  Among  these  ways  we  should  endeavor  to 
choose  the  most  expedient, — that  in  which  we 
shall  have  the  least  hinderance  and  the  greatest 
amount  of  help  or  furtherance.  Or  there  may  be 
several  equally  right  and  desirable  ends,  only  one 
of  which  we  can  pursue.  Which  of  these  we 
shall  choose  may  be  properly  made  a  pure  ques- 
tion of  expediency.  Thus,  among  several  local 
charities  of  which  my  time  and  means  will  enable 
me  to  engage  actively  in  but  one,  I  may  with  en- 
tire propriety  choose  that  which  will  best  suit  my 
convenience.     So,  too,  of  different  courses  of  read- 


76       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

ing  or  study,  expediency  as  to  my  business  in  life, 
my  taste,  my  profession,  will  be  my  best  guide. 
In  our  social  relations,  whether  of  business  or  of 
pleasure,  while  truth,  justice,  and  kindness  are  to 
be  never  violated  or  minimized,  there  is  large  room 
for  expediency  as  to  time,  place,  and  manner. 
We  are  bound  to  bestow,  and  have  a  right  to  get, 
all  the  pleasure  and  profit  which  our  social  inter- 
course will  permit  us  to  bestow  and  to  receive ; 
and  this  depends  in  no  small  degree  on  the  heed 
which  we  give  to  matters  not  of  positive  obliga- 
tion, but  properly  belonging  under  the  head  of 
expediency.  We  have  St.  Paul's  statement  that 
he  "  became  all  things  to  all  men ; "  yet  with 
his  sturdy,  robust  conscientiousness  we  cannot 
suppose  that  he  ever  made  the  slightest  compro- 
mise of  principle.  But  over  and  above  his  spon- 
taneous courtesy,  he  undoubtedly  studied,  in  the 
Latin  phrase,  the  mollia  tempora  fandi,  the  fit  oc- 
casions and  modes  of  address,  the  topics  that 
might  bring  him  into  relation  with  those  under 
his  wordfall,  the  ways  by  which  he,  for  the  sake 
of  his  holy  cause,  might  win  a  favorable  reception. 
It  was  a  masterly  stroke  of  expediency  when, 
finding  the  assembly  which  he  was  going  to  address 
divided  in  opinion,  the  Pharisees  being  the  major- 
ity, he  began,  "  I  am  a  Pharisee,  and  the  son  of  a 
Pharisee ;   of  the   hope   and  resurrection   of  the 


MODES   OF  DOING   GOOD.  77 

dead  I  am  called  in  question,"  and  thus  produced 
a  strong  division  in  his  favor  ;  —  and  again,  when, 
on  the  Areopagus,  he  started  with  the  clear  and 
emphatic  statement  of  the  truths  which  he  held  in 
common  with  the  prevalent  schools  of  philosophy. 

I  am  sorry  to  find  in  Renan's  autobiography  a 
confession  that  he  had  been  wont,  all  through  his 
life,  to  carry  expediency  of  this  complaisant  type 
beyond  the  bounds  of  truth,  and  that,  while  guilty 
of  no  other  falsehood,  and  in  a  life  of  maidenly 
gentleness,  innocence,  and  purity,  he  had  never 
been  able  to  refrain  from  such  falsehoods  as  would 
please,  conciliate,  or  flatter  those  with  whom  he 
was  brought  into  friendly  intercourse. 

The  subject  of  expediency  is  one  of  prime  im- 
portance to  the  public  teachers  of  religion.1  In 
this  respect  St.  Paul  is  their  best  model.  Their 
aim,  without  which  they  have  no  title  to  their 
office,  should  be  to  exert  the  maximum  of  influ- 
ence within  their  power  in  behalf  of  the  True  and 
the  Right,  and  especially  in  behalf  of  truth  that 
is  the  least  welcome,  if  it  be  only  of  vital  interest 
and  worth,  —  of  duties  that  are  the  most  neg- 
lected, if  they  only  form  a  part  of  the  eternal 
right.      Now  I   have  seen   two  extremes   among 

1  These  Lectures  were  first  delivered  before  the  students  of  a 
divinity  school.  Special  reference  was  therefore  made,  in  two  or 
three  instances,  as  here,  to  the  clerical  profession. 


78       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

really  good  men  who  wanted  to  do  good.  I  have 
known  those  who  if  they  had  offensive  truth  to 
utter,  made  it  tenfold  more  offensive  b}^  a  defiant, 
aggressive  manner,  by  assuming  an  antagonistic 
attitude,  and  by  side-thrusts  at  those  who  did  not 
agree  with  them,  showing  that  they  meant  war, 
and  thus  awakening  hostility,  and  then  handling 
their  weapons  so  unskilfully  that  they  did  more 
harm  to  themselves  by  their  recoil  than  they  could 
do  to  the  falsities  assailed.  I  have  known  others, 
who  were  so  afraid  of  giving  offence  that  for  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit  they  showed  only  a  jewelled 
scabbard  in  which  it  was  supposed  to  be  sheathed. 
They  diluted  the  truth  as  the  original  disciples  of 
Hahnemann  diluted  their  drugs,  and  evidently 
supposed,  as  they  did,  that  dilution  conferred 
strength.  They  rejoiced  in  the  quiet  assent  of 
their  hearers  to  unpopular  truths  so  reduced  to 
unemphatic  platitudes  as  to  leave  but  an  infini- 
tesimal difference  between  them  and  their  oppo- 
sites.  Those  who  undertake  the  office  of  public 
teachers  are  bound  to  give  distinct,  unmistakable, 
strong  utterance  to  the  truth  as  they  believe  it, 
and  especially  to  point  out,  with  a  clearness  that 
shall  give  no  possibility  for  mistake,  the  way  of 
duty,  and  to  rebuke,  not,  as  is  the  wont  of  some, 
the  sins  of  other  people  or  other  times,  but  the 
sins  and  evils  rife  then  and  there,  —  calling  things 


SELF-SEEKING.  79 

by  their  right  names,  so  that  men  may  recognize 
their  own  moral  portraiture.  But  the  castigation 
must  not  be  administered  as  if  one  enjoyed  it,  and 
took  credit  or  pride  to  himself  for  it.  There 
should  be  a  blending  of  gentleness  with  firmness, 
meekness  with  courage,  modesty  on  one's  own 
account  with  directness  and  boldness  for  the  sake 
of  truth  and  right.  One  may  thus  make  his  way 
to  the  minds  and  the  consciences  of  men  ;  while 
he  who  carries  the  war-spirit  into  his  work  is  apt 
to  find  those  whom  he  wants  to  attack  defended 
by  impregnable  armor.  What  I  have  said  is  appli- 
cable not  to  the  members  of  one  profession  alone. 
Reformers  of  every  class  and  description  need  to 
learn  what  force  there  is  in  sweetness,  what  might 
in  meekness,  what  penetrating  power  in  a  spirit 
no  less  gentle  than  resolute. 

Permit  me  to  add  to  what  I  have  said  about 
selfish  morality,  that  there  is  still,  under  the  most 
rigid  rule  of  right,  room  for  self-seeking,  if  it 
only  take,  not  even  the  second,  but  the  third 
place.  The  fitting,  the  Right,  is  always  to  be  first 
considered.  Next,  where  the  Right  is  not  compro- 
mised, our  second  thought  is  to  be  given  to  expe- 
diency as  regards  the  good  of  the  community,  or 
that  portion  of  it  with  which  we  are  connected 
by  domestic,  neighborly,  social,  or  official  relations. 
Then,  as  regards  our  own  well-being,  present  or 


80       UTILITARIANISM  AND  EXPEDIENCY. 

future,  it  is  our  right,  nay  our  duty,  to  avail  our- 
selves of  such  advantages,  helps,  benefits,  as  we 
can  make  ours  with  no  sacrifice  of  the  absolute 
right  or  of  usefulness.  This  is  our  duty,  not  to  our- 
selves alone;  for  the  better  our  position,  the  greater 
is  our  power  of  usefulness.  Anthony  Trollope 
writes  (and  baldly  as  he  says  it,  it  is  not  without 
truth),  "  We  know  that  the  more  a  man  earns,  the 
more  useful  he  is  to  his  fellow-men."  The  essential 
element  of  usefulness  is  the  mass,  the  quantity  of 
character.  What  a  man  says  or  does  or  gives  is 
a  comparatively  small  multiplicand,  of  which  what 
he  is,  is  the  much  more  significant  multiplier,  and 
the  product  depends  mainly  on  the  multiplier. 
Nor  can  the  multiplier  be  increased  by  any  merely 
outward  advantage.  But  the  multiplicand  may  be 
thus  largely  increased;  for  whatever  advantage 
one  gains  gives  him  added  occasions  and  oppor- 
tunities for  putting  what  he  is  to  use  for  the  bene- 
fit of  those  around  him.  Thus,  wealth  honestly 
obtained  and  generously  used,  social  position 
earned  by  deserving  it,  or  reputation  worthily 
won,  while  it  does  not  of  itself  make  the  man 
better,  enables  him  to  employ  his  selfhood  in  more 
numerous  ways  and  directions,  and  for  the  benefit 
of  a  more  extended  circle  of  his  fellow-men.  I 
have  known  cases  in  which  the  increased  power  of 
usefulness  was  the  manifest  motive  for  the  increase 


ONE'S   SELF  HIS  BEST  GIFT.  81 

of  wealth  already  abnormally  large ;  but  it  was 
evident  in  such  instances  that  the  noble,  generous, 
loving  selfhood  put  into  the  gifts  of  these  men  to 
the  needy,  and  to  public  institutions,  made  their 
benefactions  much  more  efficient  for  good  than  if 
there  had  been  the  gift  without  the  giver.  There 
is  a  chilliness  in  a  bequest,  or  in  what  is  given 
for  show,  or  in  alms  doled  out  from  a  reluctant 
heart ;  but  the  truly  generous  man  will  give  him- 
self in  all  that  he  bestows  on  his  fellow-men,  or 
on  any  cause  of  learning,  virtue,  or  piety. 


LECTURE  IV. 

CONSCIENCE. 

My  subject  to-day  is  Conscience.  1  would  give 
as  a  provisional  definition  of  conscience,  —  It  is 
the  perception  or  feeling  of  right  and  wrong  in 
voluntary  human  acts,  whether  our  own  or  those 
of  others.  It  bears  a  close  analogy  to  what  are 
called  the  bodily  senses,  and  may  not  improperly 
be  termed  a  sense.  It  has,  indeed,  no  specific 
bodily  organ ;  but  the  senses,  commonly  so  called, 
belong  no  more  to  the  body  than  the  conscience 
does.  It  is  not  the  eye  that  sees,  or  the  ear  that 
hears  ;  but  sights  and  sounds  ordinarily  reach  the 
mind  through  these  loopholes  in  the  body,  —  yet 
not  alwa}r8 ;  for  I  think  that  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  in  somnambulism  and  other  abnormal 
states  objects  are  perceived  without  the  interven- 
tion of  these  organs,  and  we  certainly  can  conceive 
of  perception  independently  of  them  in  the  disem- 
bodied spirit.  The  mind  discriminates  between 
acts  as  right  or  wrong  in  very  much  the  same  way 
as  that  in  which  it  discriminates  between  objects 

82 


PROVINCE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  83 

as  black  or  white,  by  immediate  and  what  may  not 
unfitly  be  termed  intuitive  perception.  There  is 
as  much  reason  for  believing  the  one  sense  as  for 
believing  the  other  to  be  innate.  Nay,  conscience 
seems  even  a  more  essential  part  of  human  nature 
than  the  bodily  senses  are.  We  regard  a  man 
born  blind  or  deaf  as  none  the  less  a  man,  entitled 
to  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  humanity ;  but 
in  the  rare  cases  in  which  a  person  is  wholly  des- 
titute of  the  moral  sense,  to  whom  murder  seems 
as  good  an  act  as  almsgiving,  no  matter  what  his 
mental  capacity  may  be,  we  regard  him  as  less 
than  human,  as  not  to  be  treated  as  a  man,  as 
more  nearly  allied  to  beasts  than  to  his  human 
kindred. 

I  have  said  that  conscience  takes  cognizance  of 
voluntary  human  acts;  but  by  a  human  act  I 
do  not  mean  a  mere  movement  of  the  body.  It  is 
on  the  movements  of  the  mind  that  conscience 
passes  judgment,  and  it  often  suspends  judgment 
because  it  does  not  appear  what  the  bodily  act 
means.  Were  I  lecturing  in  a  language  with 
which  you  were  unfamiliar,  and  were  I  to  employ 
vehement  gestures  expressive  of  intense  indigna- 
tion, you  would  neither  approve  nor  blame  me. 
But  were  I  in  plain  English  with  such  gestures  to 
denounce  some  form  of  imposture  or  some  act  of 
defiant  guilt,  your  consciences  would  bear  me  ap- 


84  CONSCIENCE. 

proving  witness,  —  condemning,  if  I  were  thus 
giving  utterance  to  wanton  petulance  or  wounded 
vanity.  Conscience  seems  to  judge  of  the  out- 
ward act,  merely  because  in  the  vast  majority  of 
cases  the  same  act  proceeds  from  the  same  or  a 
similar  motive.  There  is  indeed  some  hypocrisy 
in  seemingly  good  acts, — some,  but  not  a  great 
deal.  There  never  can  be  much  ;  if  there  were,  it 
would  cease  to  deceive.  Counterfeits  can  obtain 
currency  only  when  they  are  issued  in  very  small 
proportion  to  the  genuine  coin. 

Is  conscience  an  active  principle?  Not  in  itself 
or  of  necessity.  It  is  the  same  feeling  that  judges 
of  the  moral  conduct  of  others  and  of  our  own. 
But  in  our  own  case  it  prompts  to  action  in  a 
way  analogous  to  the  way  in  whigh  the  bodily 
senses  prompt  to  action.  Sight  is  not  an  ac- 
tive power.  We  see  unnumbered  things  that  sug- 
gest no  action.  Yet  nine-tenths  of  our  acts  are 
prompted  wholly  or  in  >part  by  what  we  see. 
Hearing  is  not  an  active  power.  We  hear  a  great 
many  things  without  doing  any  thing  about  them. 
But  a  great  deal  of  what  we  hear  leads  to  specific 
action.  Conscience, 'in  like  manner,  passes  judg- 
ment on  what  we  read  and  learn  of  events  that 
transpired  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  on  what  is 
going  on  now  in  the  other  hemisphere  ;  yet  it 
prompts  no  action  about  these  things :  but  when 


CONSCIENCE,   INFALLIBLE.  85 

there  is  a  moral  choice  to  be  made,  conscience 
shows  us  what  choice  should  be  made.  It  is  with 
conscience  as  with  the  sense  of  sight.  I  am  walk- 
ing to  this  hall,  I  will  suppose,  from  some  spot  out 
of  town.  I  must  plant  my  next  footstep  some- 
where. Where  shall  I  plant  it?  My  eyes  tell 
me,  —  not  in  that  mud-hole,  —  not  on  the  railway 
track,  with  an  approaching  train,  —  not  in  the 
middle  of  the  street  where  I  may  be  run  over, 
but  on  the  clean,  safe  sidewalk.  I  am  on  my  life- 
way.  I  cannot  stop.  Somehow  or  other  there  are 
next  steps  to  be  taken.  Conscience  shows  me  the 
bearing  of  the  several  steps  which  I  may  take. 
This  step  is  unfitting,  and  therefore  wrong,  be- 
cause it  will  soil  the  purity  that  belongs  to  an  im- 
mortal child  of  God ;  this,  because  it  is  unsuited 
to  my  condition  and  circumstances ;  this,  because 
it  interferes  witli  another's  rights ;  while  there  yet 
remains  a  step  which  is  fitting  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, and  violates  no  known  fitness  as  regards 
any  other  being  or  object. 

We  next  ask,  Is  conscience  always  to  be  relied 
on  ?  Is  it  never  liable  to  be  deceived  ?  I  answer, 
It  is  always  to  be  relied  on,  and  always  liable  to 
be  deceived.  Its  judgment  is  always  correct  with 
reference  to  our  knowledge  of  the  case  in  hand, 
and  is  therefore  our  only  accessible  rule  of  action  ; 
but  we  can  never  be  certain  that  we   have   full 


86  CONSCIENCE. 

knowledge  of  the  case,  and  thus  our  right  may  be 
wrong  by  a  perfect  standard.  Conscience  is  like  a 
judge  too  wise  and  learned  to  make  any  mistake 
as  to  the  law,  but  who  may  have  the  case  before 
him  imperfectly  or  falsely  represented  by  perjured 
or  incompetent  witnesses,  and  may  thus  give  a 
-decision  right. in  law,  but  wrong  with  reference 
to  the  actual  facts  of  the  case.  I  might  take-  as 
an  illustrative  instance  one"  which  we  have  consid- 
ered in  another  connection,  negro  slavery.  As  to 
slavery,  both  parties  had  equally  conscientious 
men  in  their  ranks,  and  there  was  relative  right 
on  both  sides.  Neither  party  maintained  that  be- 
ings who  were  equals  before  God  could  rightfully 
enslave  one  another.  Neither  party  denied  that 
it  was  right  to  enslave  beings  of  an  inferior  order, 
still  more,  if  they  were  doomed  to  slavery  by  a 
special  curse  of  God.  Southern  divines  used  to 
preach,  and  the  Southern  people  undoubtedly  be- 
lieved, that  the  negroes  were  of  an  essentially  infe- 
rior race;  that  God  had  cursed  them  through  Noah, 
though  Noah  was  drunk  when  he  pronounced  the 
curse  ;  and  that  all  the  posterity  of  his  son  Ham 
were  by  and  in  that  curse  divinely  doomed  to  per- 
petual slavery.  If  I  believed  this,  I  would  as 
readily  own  a  negro  as  a  horse.  The  abolitionists 
believed  negroes  to  be  men,  with  all  the  rights  of 
men,  our   potential   equals,  and,  if  now  inferior, 


EDUCATION  OF  CONSCIENCE.  87 

rendered  so  by  the  temporal  condition  of  things 
that  made  negro  slavery  possible.  We  now  have 
no  doubt  that  their  relative  right  was  in  close  ac- 
cordance with  the  absolute  right.  Their  only* 
error  was  that  they  were  slow  to  believe  that 
there  could  be  pro-slavery  men  fully  as  true  to 
conscience  as  they  were. 

Can  conscience  be  educated  ?  Yes ;  but  not  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  education  of  conscience  is 
commonly  spoken  of,  —  not  by  the  increase  of 
knowledge,  but  by  the  careful  and  faithful  use  of 
conscience  itself.  If  Satan  is  the  real  personage 
that  he  is  in  the  popular  theology,  he  has  a  knowl- 
edge of  right  and  wrong  hardly  less  profound  than 
that  of  God  himself,  but  not  therefore  an  educated 
conscience ;  while  the  most  ignorant  person  living, 
if  in  every  daily  concern  he  asks  what  he  ought  to 
do,  and  never  fails  to  actualize  the  answer,  has  as 
well  educated  a  conscience  as  if  he  were  equally 
sage  and  saint.  It  is  with  conscience  as  with 
sight.  A  man  may  travel  all  over  the  world  and 
see  all  its  wonders,  and  yet  his  vision  may  be  no 
more  keen  or  accurate  than  when  he  started ; 
while  the  watchmaker,  who  hardly  looks  at  any 
thing  but  a  watch,  yet  trains  himself  to  detect 
therein  the  slightest  misplacing  of  a  pivot  or  the 
minutest  particle  of  dust,  has  his  vision  rendered 
by  exercise  to  the  last  degree  keen  and  true. 


88  CONSCIENCE. 

We  need  both  kinds  of  education.  We  need  as 
large  an  acquaintance  as  we  can  attain  with  the 
nature  of  things,  that  we  may  know  their  fit- 
nesses ;  but  our  consciences  are  not  thereby  edu- 
cated, nor  are  we  morally  any  the  better.  We 
need,  still  more,  the  habit  of  looking  with  the 
watchmaker's  practised  and  penetrating  vision  at 
the  right  and  wrong  in  every  thing  that  apper- 
tains to  our  conduct,  and  of  always  embodying  in 
action  what  we  perceive  to  be  right.  Thus  only 
can  we  truly  educate  conscience. 

An  important  discrimination  ought  here  to  be 
made.  What  is  called  the  moral  improvement  of 
society  is  not  so  much  a  growth  in  conscientious- 
ness as  the  inevitable  increase  of  such  knowledge 
of  moral  fitnesses  as  belongs  equally  to  bad  men 
as  to  good  men,  and  of  which  Satan  himself  might 
be  the  master.  I  do  not  believe  that  we  in  gen- 
eral have  as  highly  trained  consciences  as  the  New- 
England  Puritans  had  two  hundred  years  ago, 
and  yet  they  did  from  their  ignorance  of  the 
nature  of  things,  always  under  the  urgency  of  an 
exacting  conscience,  some  things  which  we  know 
to  have  been  very  wrong,  and  other  things  which 
we  now  see  to  have  been  very  foolish. 

I  have  said  that  I  regard  conscience  as  innate, 
and,  if  so,  as  universal.  But  it  is  maintained  by 
not  a  few  writers  on  moral  science,  that  conscience 


CANNIBALISM.  89 

is  entirely  the  result  of  culture ;  and  in  support 
of  this  view,  it  is  alleged  that  there  are  savage 
tribes  that  perform  acts  which  it  is  impossible  that 
conscience  should  sanction,  even  at  the  lowest 
grade  at  which  man  can  be  above  the  brutes,  such 
as  cannibalism,  the  murder  of  infirm  parents,  the 
exposure  to  certain  death  of  children  that  are 
regarded  as  superfluous. 

There  is  a  mystery  about  cannibalism.  There 
is  reason  to  believe  that  it  may  have  originated  in 
some  superstitious  notion  about  the  transfusion 
of  an  enemy's  strength  or  courage  into  the  soul  of 
the  warrior  who  feeds  upon  his  flesh.  There  is 
some  reason,  also,  for  supposing  it  to  have  been  at 
the  outset  a  religious  sacrifice,  and  then  a  feeding 
upon  sacrifice.  These  suppositions  do  not  indeed 
make  it  otherwise  than  atrocious  and  revolting  to 
the  last  degree ;  yet  I  doubt  whether  civilized  man 
is  now  in  a  condition  to  cast  reproach  upon  it. 
The  day  will  come,  if  Christianity  be,  as  I  believe 
it  is,  the  everlasting  gospel,  when  the  nations  of 
modern  Christendom  will  be  classed  with  the  can- 
nibal tribes  as  co-barbarians ;  for  the  bush-fights 
between  a  few  scores  or  hundreds  of  half-naked 
savages,  whatever  the  sequel,  can  present  nothing 
so  abhorrent  to  reason  or  humanity  as  the  slaugh- 
ter of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  in  the  late 
Franco-Prussian  war,  in  a  dispute  without  merit 


90  CONSCIENCE. 

and  almost  without  meaning  on  either  side,  be- 
tween an  ambitious  statesman  and  a  usurping  em- 
peror. Yet  Prince  Bismarck  is  supposed  to  have 
a  conscience,  and  would  claim  its  enlightenment 
by  religious  faith  ;  and  on  the  other  side  we  can 
hardly  believe  the  Bonaparte  family  to  have  been 
wholly  destitute  of  the  moral  faculty,  though  they 
have  never  made  much  use  of  it. 

As  for  the  barbarous  treatment  of  old  people 
and  children,  I  can  easily  conceive  that  it  may 
have  had  its  source  in  humane  feeling.  In  the 
lowest  savage  state,  especially  in  roving  tribes, 
with  perpetual  exposure  to  the  elements,  with 
dangers  from  wild  beasts  and  from  enemies  hardly 
less  brutal,  and  with  the  most  precarious  supply 
of  food,  life  at  its  best  estate  must  seem  hardly 
worth  living ;  it  cannot  be  looked  upon  as  desira- 
ble for  children,  unless  of  the  most  robust  and  vig- 
orous constitution  and  promise ;  and  it  is  not 
inconceivable  that  for  those  who  have  reached  a 
helpless  senility,  the  certainty  of  want  and  suffer- 
ing without  any  possible  relief  or  offset  may  have 
led  to  the  slaying  of  aged  parents,  if  that  has  ever 
been  practised, — which  may  be  doubted,  for  there 
is  much  less  than  assured  authenticity  in  the  re- 
ports of  it  that  have  been  transmitted  to  us. 

In  the  question  of  the  universality  of  conscience 
a  low  state  of  morals  does  not  prove  that  there  is 


AFRICAN   TRIBES.  91 

no  sense  of  wrong  connected  with  immoral  acts. 
In  civilized  life  there  are,  besides  moral  principle, 
a  thousand  restraints  preventive  of  crime.  Were 
not  certain  tempting  forms  of  immorality  sure  to 
destroy  one's  social  standing,  is  it  certain  that  all 
who  now  abstain  from  them  would  remain  innocent 
of  them?  But  in  savage  life  there  is  no  privileged 
social  position  which  one  forfeits  by  gross  immoral- 
ity. Theft  has  been  thought  very  common  among 
uncivilized  races,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  sav- 
ages will  generally  steal  whenever  they  can  from 
travellers  and  from  ships.  But  the}r  have  the 
temptation  of  rare  and  novel  articles  of  ornament 
and  use,  and  they  have,  too,  the  disposition  common 
to  almost  all  nations  out  of  Christendom,  ancient 
and  modern  —  typified  in  the  double  sense  of  the 
Latin  hostis  —  to  identify  strangers  and  enemies. 
But  Mungo  Park,  writing  of  a  certain  African 
tribe  that  stole  from  him  every  thing  that  they 
could  get  hold  of,  says,  "  They  themselves  regard 
theft  as  a  crime,  and  they  are  not  in  the  habit  of 
stealing  from  one  another."  He  at  the  same  time 
speaks  of  certain  noble  and  delicate  traits  of  char- 
acter among  the  lowest  of  the  African  races,  —  of 
gratitude  for  kindness,  loyal  affection  for  their 
benefactors,  and  fidelity  in  keeping  and  restoring 
objects  intrusted  to  their  care.  He  says  that  he 
never,  in  his  many  years  of  sojourn  in  Africa,  wit- 


92  CONSCIENCE. 

nessed  a  single  instance  of  hardheartedness  in  a 
woman,  or  a  single  breach  of  motherly  kindness 
or  of  filial  reverence.  Livingstone  says  substan- 
tially the  same,  and  sums  up  his  account  of  one 
of  the  tribes  in  which  he  had  witnessed  instances 
both  of  heroic  virtue  and  of  almost  incredible  cru- 
elty, by  saying,  "After  long  observation  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  them  the 
same  strange  mixture  of  good  and  evil  that  we 
find  in  mankind  generally." 

The  Australians  are  undoubtedly  at  a  still 
greater  remove  from  civilization  than  even  the 
rudest  African  tribes.  They  have  been  described 
at  their  worst  mainly  in  the  interest  and  through 
the  reports  of  those  who  would  gladly  see  them 
exterminated;  but  whenever  one  who  cared  for 
them  has  given  any  account  of  them,  they  have 
been  represented  as  sensitive  to  moral  distinctions 
within  their  very  narrow  range  of  knowledge,  and 
as  capable  of  gratitude  and  of  fidelity. 

To  recur  to  a  distinction  at  which  T  gave  a 
cursory  glance  in  speaking  of  the  education  of 
conscience,  the  phrase  "  improved  condition  of 
society  "  which  we  see  and  hear  used  with  regard 
to  the  morality  of  the  present  time  as  compared 
with  the  past  more  or  less  remote,  has  two  mean- 
ings, one  of  which  may  be,  and,  as  I  fear,  is,  false. 
From  my  definition  of  the  Right  as  that  which  is 


THE  IMPROVED   CONDITION  OF  SOCIETY.  93 

intrinsically  fit,  society  must  of  necessity  be  con- 
tinually improving  in  its  knowledge  of  the  Right, 
and  therefore  in  its  practical  science  of  morals. 
You  cannot  name  an  item  of  knowledge  which 
may  not  have  its  moral  relations  or  attachments. 
There  is  not  an  invention,  or  a  product  of  art,  or 
a  useful  or  usable  commodity,  which  is  not  sus- 
ceptible in  some  way  of  misuse  or  abuse,  and  with 
reference  to  which  there  may  not  be  a  crisis  in- 
volving some  grave  moral  question.  One  of  the 
most  laborious  achievements  of  legal  genius  and 
science  combined  has  been  the  application  of  the 
principles  of  the  common  law  to  questions  that 
are  arising  in  connection  with  steamboats,  rail- 
ways, telegraphs,  and  telephones.  In  like  manner, 
the  practical  moralist  has  new  questions  to  settle 
with  regard  to  every  fresh  form  of  industry  and 
aspect  of  social  life,  each  having  its  own  peculiar 
moral  relations,  its  own  specific  right  and  wrong. 
Now,  an  all-knowing  age  like  ours  cannot  but  have 
a  clear  and  what  seems  a  full  knowledge  of  right 
and  wrong;  for  a  knowledge  of  the  relations  of 
persons  and  things  to  one  another  comprises  all  of 
moral  knowledge  that  there  is.  An  age  like  ours, 
then,  may  criticise  all  earlier  ages  and  lower  con- 
ditions of  society  as  morally  deficient,  while  the 
deficiency  may  be  in  knowledge  alone,  and  may 
be  due  to  no  moral  cause.     But  it  may  be  fairly 


94  CONSCIENCE. 

questioned  whether  our  superior  knowledge  is 
conjoined  with  a  superior  quickness  and  tender- 
ness of  conscience  as  regards  the  contents  of  that 
knowledge,  —  whether  its  mechanical  and  econom- 
ical relations  are  not  throwing  its  morality  into 
the  background,  —  whether  for  instance,  the  pains- 
taking and  often  painful  industry  with  which  our 
ancestors  applied  themselves  to  seek  out  and  ex- 
tirpate imaginary  crimes,  such  as  witchcraft  and 
sorcery,  does  not  indicate  a  higher  type  of  moral 
character  than  the  readiness  with  which  we  con- 
done swindling,  bribery,  and  corruption,  when  the 
perpetrators  can  break  the  meshes  of  the  law.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  the  whole  enlarged  field  of  our 
knowledge  is  to  be  ultimately  conquered  and  gov- 
erned by  conscience.  But  we  are  now  too  busy  in 
taking  possession  of  our  new  domain  to  provide 
for  its  government.  "  First  that  which  is  natural, 
and  afterward  that  which  is  spiritual." 

I  have  spoken  of  the  general  increase  of  knowl- 
edge as  providing  materials  which  equally  crave 
and  direct  the  activity  of  conscience,  and  thus  in 
the  popular,  though  not  in  the  true,  sense  of  the 
terms,  contribute  to  the  education  of  conscience. 
In  this  sense  I  now  ask  you  to  consider  the  office 
of  law  as  an  educator.  Law  has  the  fitting  or 
right  for  its  basis.  The  only  object  of  honest 
legislation  —  and  there   is   little  of  actual   legis- 


LAW,  AN  EDUCATOR.  95 

lation  or  law-making  that  is  not  honest,  the  greater 
part  of  the  work  of  our  legislators  relating  not  to 
law  proper,  that  is,  to  rules  for  the  government  of 
life,  but  to  local  and  personal  interests  in  which 
there  is  full  play  for  lobbying  and  intrigue  —  the 
only  object  of  honest  legislation  is  the  framing  of 
portions  of  the  Right  into  rules  to  be  observed 
under  penalty  for  their  violation.  The  laws  ex- 
press the  average  knowledge  and  moral  feeling  of 
the  community,  not  the  moral  convictions  of  the 
best  and  most  enlightened  few ;  for  what  they  know 
the  many  do  not  believe,  —  not  those  of  persons 
of  a  very  low  moral  grade  ;  for  mediocrity  in 
morals  is  less  patient  of  what  falls  below  its  own 
standard  than  is  that  superior  excellence,  of  which 
forbearance  and  hopefulness  for  what  is  beneath 
itself^  are  essential  traits.  There  is  in  law  some- 
thing below  what  ought  to  be  in  men's  minds. 
Its  standard  is  beneath  what  zealous  purists  would 
have  it ;  but  it  is  all  the  better  for  this.  Laws 
too  nearly  perfect  would  be  constantly  evaded 
and  violated,  would  fall  into  disesteem,  and  would 
not  even  need  formal  repeal  to  be  practically  set 
aside ;  so  that  the  friends  of  good  morals  ought 
to  be  as  much  afraid  of  too  good  laws  as  of  bad 
laws. 

The  laws,  such  as  they  are,  have  a  most  im- 
portant educational  influence,  and  they  probably 


96  CONSCIENCE. 

in  this  way  supersede  the  possibility  of  a  great 
deal  more  of  crime  and  wrong  than  they  prevent 
or  punish.  A  great  many  people,  instead  of  look- 
ing for  themselves  into  the  nature  of  human  acts, 
take  precisely  the  estimate  of  their  moral  worth 
or  demerit  that  is  given  them  by  the  laws.  They 
regard  as  intrinsically  vile  and  disgraceful  the  acts 
which  the  law  visits  with  ignominious  punish- 
ment ;  as  very  much  less  shameful  those  that  are 
punished  only  by  a  fine  ;  and,  too  often,  as  not 
deserving  any  severe  moral  animadversion  such 
bad  acts  as  the  law  does  not  or  can  not  reach. 
Children  grow  up  into  this  moral  estimate  ;  aud 
you  would  find,  in  our  public  schools  for  instance, 
that  the  average  boy  or  girl  has  very  much  the 
same  tariff  of  moral  demerit  and  shame  as  that 
which  would  be  derived  from  a  superficial  knowl- 
edge of  the  law  of  the  land. 

In  this  estimate  there  have  been  some  marvel- 
lous changes  within  my  remembrance.  Let  me 
cite  a  case  in  which  a  grievous  wrong  in  one 
direction  has  lapsed  into  one  of  an  opposite  char- 
acter still  more  grievous.  I  remember  when 
imprisonment  for  debt  was  the  law  and  the  prac- 
tice, and  it  was  possible  for  a  man  honest,  but 
unfortunate,  to  be  shut  up  with  the  worst  of 
felons  for  a  month  at  least,  till  certain  tedious 
formalities  for  his  release  could  be  completed,  and 


DEBT  AND   BANKRUPTCY.  97 

often  for  many  months,  or  even  years,  if  there 
were  an  alleged  flaw  in  these  formalities,  or  an 
alleged  but  unproved  suspicion  of  concealed  prop- 
ert}~.  In  that  condition  of  the  law,  public  opinion 
bore  very  hardly  on  an  insolvent  debtor.  His 
known  blamelessness  of  character  in  previous 
years  did  not  suffice  to  ward  off  disesteem  and 
obloquy.  Failures  in  business  were  rare,  and  the 
bankrupt  was  treated  with  the  utmost  severity. 
Every  thing  not  absolutely  necessary  was  taken 
from  him,  carpets  were  stripped  from  his  floors, 
superfluous  beds,  blankets,  and  crockery  were 
confiscated,  and  he  and  his  entire  family  were 
obliged  almost  to  sit  in  ashes,  and  made  to  feel  the 
ban  of  the  whole  community,  —  all  this  because 
its  relation  to  the  jail  made  insolvency  disgrace- 
ful. Now  that  legislation  is  largely  in  the  hands 
of  the  debtor  classes,  and  the  law  uses  no  severe 
measures  to  enforce  the  payment  of  debts,  but  on 
the  other  hand  gives  the  bankrupt  every  facility 
for  liquidating  his  debts  without  paying  them, 
a  bankrupt  incurs  no  reproach,  though  he  makes 
not  the  slightest  retrenchment  in  his  expenses, 
nor  even  if  he  seems  as  rich  after  his  failure  as 
before,  and  a  man  may  hold  his  position  in  re- 
spectable society  when  it  is  perfectly  well  known 
that  he  never  pays  a  debt  which  he  can  postpone 
or  evade.      On  this  whole  matter  of  pecuniary 


98  CONSCIENCE. 

obligation  the  law  has  created  a  loose  tone  of 
feeling,  and  is  undoubtedly  answerable  for  many 
really  callous  consciences. 

Another  subject  on  which  law  has  done  and 
is  doing  an  incalculable  amount  of  mischief  to  the 
general  conscience,  is  the  sale  and  use  of  intoxi- 
cating liquors.  The  brunt  of  legislation  is  di- 
rected against  the  sale  of  such  liquors,  while  a 
drunkard  does  not  come  anyhow  under  the  cogni- 
zance of  the  law  until  he  has  reached  the  most 
squalid  condition.  The  consequence  is,  that  the 
moral  feeling  of  the  community  takes  the  trend 
of  the  law,  and  holds  the  vender  of  strong  drink 
as  worthy  of  execration,  —  the  drunkard  as  an 
object  of  pity,  to  be  cosseted  rather  than  con- 
demned, and,  if  he  suspends  drinking  for  a  while, 
to  be  wreathed  with  the  aureola  of  sainthood,  and 
welcomed  as  a  public  teacher  on  the  platform  or 
in  the  pulpit.  Now,  I  have  no  apology  to  offer, 
either  for  the  seller  or  for  the  drunkard.  But  the 
drunkard  is  the  principal;  the  seller,  the  acces- 
sory. Moreover,  the  drunkard  necessitates  the 
seller.  Demand  will  somehow  create  a  supply, 
if  not  by  legal,  by  illegal  means,  —  if  not  openly, 
still  worse,  clandestinely.  The  law,  so  far  as  it 
makes  the  business  infamous,  puts  it  into  worse 
and  more  dangerous  hands,  but  does  not  and  can 
not  destroy  it.     What  is  needed  is  to  attach  to 


ETHICAL    VALUE  OF  LAW.  99 

drunkenness  itself  the  most  disgraceful  stigma 
with  which  the  law  can  hrand  it.  Let  the  law 
treat  the  drunkard  with  as  little  mercy  as  it  shows 
to  the  pickpocket,  and  society  will  follow  the  lead 
of  the  law,  and  put  the  drunkard  under  its  ban ; 
and  the  aim  of  parents  and  householders  thence- 
forward will  be  to  exclude  from  their  tables,  their 
houses,  and  their  use,  save  in  the  stress  of  need, 
that  which  might  bring  "shades  of  the  prison- 
house  "  on  their  homes,  and  place  their  children  in 
the  same  category  with  thieves  and  vagabonds. 

The  law  also  mis-educates  conscience  in  its 
attaching  greater  ignominy  to  crimes  of  violence 
than  to  those  of  lust.  I  am  by  no  means  clear  in 
the  conviction  that  capital  punishment  is  neces- 
sary ;  but  if  it  be  so,  I  know  not  why  seduction 
should  not  be  thus  punished,  and  so  made  infamous 
in  the  last  degree  :  and  short  of  hanging,  there  are 
no  penalties  that  would  more  than  express  the 
righteous  indignation  with  which  this  whole  class 
of  crimes  ought  to  be  regarded,  and  with  which 
they  will  be  regarded  whenever  the  average  opin- 
ion shall  bring  the  law  up  to  its  proper  standard  ; 
while  till  then  debauchees,  because  they  can 
escape  the  prison,  will  still  hold  their  unchal- 
lenged place  in  what  calls,  but  for  that  very  rea- 
son miscalls,  itself  respectable  society. 

But  whatever  its  shortcomings,  the  law  is   of 


100  CONSCIENCE. 

unspeakable  worth  in  furnishing  the  consciences 
of  those  who  can  not  or  will  not  think  for  them- 
selves an  approximate  standard  of  right.  While 
it  remains  stationary,  it  is  raising  the  mass  of  the 
community  toward  its  own  level ;  and  as  fast  as  it 
does  this,  it  is  lifting  the  average  opinion  and  feel- 
ing above  that  level,  and  thus  insuring  and  effect- 
ing its  own  improvement. 

The  efficacy  of  law  in  giving  conscience  its 
standard  may  be  seen  in  the  case  of  sins  which 
from  their  very  nature  it  cannot  reach.  Take  for 
instance  such  sins  as  slander  and  calumny,  whether 
in  conversation  which,  instead  of  "grace  seasoned 
with  salt,"  as  St.  Paul  recommends,  is  all  salt  and 
no  grace,  or  through  the  press  in  such  guise  as  just 
to  evade  prosecution  for  libel.  It  is  hard  to  over- 
estimate the  foulness  and  vileness  of  this  form  of 
guilt ;  and  yet  because  the  law  cannot  reach  it, 
one's  reputation  is  not  sensibly  damaged  by  it. 
The  tale-bearer,  whose  tongue  is  more  poisonous 
than  the  fangs  of  a  rattlesnake,  may  be  a  welcome 
visitor,  and  even  a  favored  associate,  with  persons 
who  would  shrink  from  the  companionship  of  a 
much  less  dishonest  and  less  harmful  offender  on 
whom  the  law  had  laid  its  hands.  The  editor, 
too,  or  the  newspaper  correspondent,  whose  words 
sting  like  an  adder,  and  who  is  aware  that  his 
victim's  only  demerit  is  that  of  not  belonging  to 


BORROWED   CONSCIENCE.  101 

his  own  party,  may  be  a  public  favorite,  while 
guilt  of  a  far  less  culpable  grade,  yet  punishable 
by  law,  would  bring  upon  him  social  ostracism. 
The  very  fact  that  inactive  conscience  leaves 
uncondemned  so  much  which  the  law  cannot 
reach  is  a  strong  attestation  of  the  educational 
power  of  the  law ;  while  it  may  well  serve  as  an 
admonition  against  implicit  reliance  on  any  stand- 
ard other  than  our  own  unbiassed  sense  of  fit- 
ness and  right.  It  indicates  also  the  direction  in 
which  men  need  moral  enlightenment.  There  is 
no  necessity  of  inveighing  against  offences  on 
which  the  law  lays  its  grasp.  If  men  commit 
them,  it  is  with  open  eyes,  and  with  an  entire 
willingness  to  do  wrong.  The  field  for  moral 
teaching  is  the  broad  ground  that  lies  between 
legal  Tightness  and  faultless  excellence,  —  between 
the  ethics  of  the  statute-book  and  the  ethics  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

Permit  me  now  to  show  you  what  conscience  is 
not ;  for  it  has  not  a  few  counterfeits  that  usurp 
its  name  and  cast  reproach  upon  it.  It  is  no  un- 
common thing  for  men  to  think  and  profess  that 
they  are  acting  conscientiously  when  they  are 
really  obeying  some  fetich  of  their  own  making, 
which  they  have  enthroned  in  the  place  of  con- 
science. 

Thus,  it  is  very  common  for  persons  to  substi- 


102  CONSCIENCE. 

tute  the  conscience  of  others  for  their  own,  and 
to  call  it  their  own.  They  go  into  the  street,  or 
on  'Change,  or  to  the  church,  or  the  public  meet- 
ing,  or  they  resort  to  the  daily  press,  with  the  cry, 
"  Men  and  brethren,  what  shall  I  do  ?  "  and  when 
they  get  the  answer,  they  call  it  the  voice  of  con- 
science. Most  of  the  really  right-meaning  pro- 
slavery  people  in  the  Northern  States  before  the 
war  of  the  Rebellion,  consulted  instead  of  their 
own  consciences  a  public,  national  conscience, 
largely  formed  by  slaveholders  and  their  inter- 
ested abettors;  and  in  every  reform-movement  a 
great  part  of  the  opposition  comes  from  those 
whose  own  consciences  would  be  on  the  right 
side,  but  who  have  more  confidence  in  the  general 
voice  than  in  such  decisions  as  they  would  reach 
by  their  own  serious  thought.  Now,  there  is  so 
much  that  is  individual  and  peculiar  in  every  life, 
that  He  alone  who  knows  the  heart,  and  whose 
voice  the  loyal  conscience  is,  can  be  a  safe  coun- 
sellor. The  testimony  of  every  faithful  soul  is, 
u  I  have  trodden  the  wine-press  alone,  and  of  the 
people  there  was  none  with  me."  Nehemiah,  next 
to  Moses  the  greatest  personage  in  Hebrew  his- 
tory, who  did  hardly  any  thing  in  which  he  had 
human  countenance  or  sympathy,  and  who  in  his 
holy  and  patriotic  enterprise  gives  us  as  close  a 
blending  of  the  hero  and  the  saint  as  we  have  on 


ACTING  IN  CHARACTER.  103 

record,  says,  "I  consulted  with  myself,  and  I 
rebuked  the  nobles  and  the  rulers,"  who  seemed 
his  natural  advisers,  but  whom  if  he  had  consulted, 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem  would  never  have  been 
rebuilt. 

In  the  next  place,  we  are  very  apt  to  take 
strong  feeling,  especially  if  it  seems  justified,  for 
conscience.  Thus,  resentment,  when  we  regard  it 
as  righteous,  often  usurps  the  office  of  conscience, 
and  acts  in  its  name.  We  think  that  we  "do 
well  to  be  angry."  Perhaps  we  are  right.  But 
indignation  has  for  its  due  objects,  not  persons, 
but  deeds ;  and  when  it  extends  to  persons,  there 
is  always  room  to  question  its  dictates. 

We  are  liable  also  to  let  our  tastes,  our  likings, 
our  prejudices,  assume  the  place  of  conscience, — 
to  imagine  every  act  or  utterance  that  is  genuine, 
honest,  sincere,  in  the  common  phrase,  "in  charac- 
ter," to  be  conscientious,  though  in  the  particular 
concerned  our  character  may  be  precisely  what  it 
ought  not  to  be.  No  man  was  ever  more  thor- 
oughly honest,  or  acted  more  entirely  "  in  charac- 
ter," than  St.  Paul  when  he  assisted  at  the  execu- 
tion of  Stephen,  and  started  on  his  sanguinary 
mission  against  all  the  Christians  that  he  could 
find.  But  it  is  wrong  to  say  that  he  was  conscien- 
tious in  so  doing,  nor  did  he  in  his  subsequent  life 
justify  himself  on   that  ground.     Had   he  looked 


104  CONSCIENCE. 

deep  enough  into  his  own  heart,  he  would  have 
found  there,  bearing  the  Creator's  imprint,  laws 
of  truth,  justice,  and  love,  against  which  he  was 
sinning  most  atrociously  while  he  thought  that  he 
was  doing  God  service. 

In  St.  Paul's  case  it  was  loyalty  to  Judaism 
that  took  the  place  of  conscience,  and  there  is  no 
pseudo-conscience  to  which  good  men  are  so  apt 
to  render  their  allegiance  as  zeal  for  their  reli- 
gious sect  or  party.  The  harsh  and  bitter  stress 
laid  by  some  religionists  on  metaphysical  dogmas, 
by  others  on  posture  and  millinery,  by  others,  still, 
on  organization,  making  kind  and  brotherly  treat- 
ment contingent  on  them,  is,  I  have  no  doubt, 
genuinely  sincere  and  honest,  yet  not  therefore 
conscientious ;  for  it  involves  the  violation  of  jus- 
tice and  love,  which  are  the  only  standard  that 
conscience  recognizes  between  man  and  man.  I 
read  not  long  ago  the  Life  of  an  eminent  dignitary 
in  the  English  Church,  who  evidently  thought 
himself  among  the  foremost  Christians  of  his 
time,  but  whose  conscience,  it  seemed  to  me,  had 
lain  from  the  day  of  his  ordination  in  a  Rip  Van 
Winkle  sleep,  and  what  he  called  "  church  princi- 
ples "  had  taken  its  place.  In  his  correspondence 
he  never  speaks  of  dissenters  without  expressions 
of  contempt,  hatred,  or  both;  evangelical  members 
of  his   own   church   he   treats    with  still  greater 


105 


severity,  as,  not  deeming  them  beneath  ridicule, 
he  blends  for  them  ridicule  with  hatred  and  con- 
tempt ;  with  the  Romeward-leaning  among  his  own 
high-church  party  he  deals  more  leniently,  and  yet 
still  with  distrust  of  their  motives  and  character  ; 
and  he  leaves  the  reader  with  the  impression  that 
the  proportion  of  really  wise  and  good  men  among 
English  Christians  is  hardly  as  great  as  would 
have  sufficed  to  save  Sodom  from  destruction.  It 
is  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  fully  as  harsh  judg- 
ments, with  less  of  bitterness  it  may  be,  but  with 
more  of  supercilious  scorn,  among  persons  who 
pride  themselves  on  their  broad  liberality,  and 
who  seem  able  to  tolerate  every  thing  except  seri- 
ous, definite,  and  earnest  religious  convictions. 
Such  censoriousness  in  its  several  forms,  however 
sincere  and  honest,  has  no  claim  to  be  considered 
as  conscientious,  its  judgments  being  shaped  by 
the  standard  of  personal  feeling,  and  not  by  that 
of  the  fitting  and  the  Right. 

Another  way  in  which  conscience  is  liable  to  be 
betrayed  is  by  substituting  reasoning  for  feeling. 
A  striking  instance  occurred  not  man}*-  years  ago 
in  the  vote  of  the  large  majority  of  the  English 
bishops  in  the  House  of  Lords  in  favor  of  the 
needless  and  aggressive  Afghan  war.  One  of  the 
sacred  college  wrote  a  labored  argument  in  justi- 
fication of  his  conduct  and  that  of  his  colleagues. 


106  CONSCIENCE. 

His  reasoning  was  in  this  wise.  Pure  Christianity 
ought  to  be  maintained  in  the  ascendant  in  the 
East.  England  is  the  sole  fountain  and  represen- 
tative of  pure  Christianity.  English  supremacy 
in  the  East  must  be  maintained,  else  Christianity 
will  lose  its  hold  on  the  Asiatic  races.  Therefore 
this  war,  which  is  for  supremacy,  and  especially 
to  ward  off  the  incursion  of  Russia  and  the  Greek 
Church,  should  be  supported  by  the  votes  and 
influence  of  all  Christian  men.  Now,  had  that 
prelate  only  placed  side  by  side  the  Afghan  war 
and  the  fundamental  principles  of  human  brother- 
hood which  every  enlightened  Christian  must  rec- 
ognize, he  would  as  soon  have  recommended  a 
general  massacre  of  dissenters  or  agnostics  in  the 
British  Empire  as  have  expressed  approval  of  a 
war  so  abhorrent  to  humane  sentiment  and  unso- 
phisticated Christian  feeling.  I  apprehend  that  we 
are  all  liable,  though  it  may  be  in  less  atrocious 
forms,  to  similar  sophistry.  If  a  cause  or  interest 
approves  itself  to  conscience  as  intrinsically 
worthy,  we  are  over-prone  to  adopt  or  sanction 
methods  of  supporting  or  advocating  it  which 
conscience  would  not  authorize,  especially  if  such 
modes  are  the  most  direct,  the  most  practicable, 
or  seemingly  the  most  efficient. 

Let  me  say  in  conclusion,  A  genuine  conscience 
is  a  growing  conscience,  —  one  that  is  perpetual] y 


GROWTH  OF  CHARACTER,  107 

becoming  more  prompt,  more  keen,  more  tender. 
It  is  in  this  mainly  that  the  growth  of  character 
consists.  But  even  in  good  men  I  apprehend  that 
the  growth  of  character  too  often  bears  a  very 
close  analogy  to  that  of  the  body.  During  the 
early  years  of  life  more  food  is  taken  than  is  neces- 
sary to  maintain  the  body  in  its  present  state,  and 
there  is  a  constant  increase.  But  when  adult 
years  have  been  reached,  nutrition  no  more  than 
replaces  the  normal  waste  of  tissue,  and  growth 
ceases.  In  like  mariner,  character  often  appears 
to  grow,  up  to  a  certain  point;  then  there  seems 
to  supervene  what  I  might  call  the  consciousness 
of  an  adult  state  ;  and  then  growth  ceases,  though 
at  a  stage  far  below  the  measure  of  perfection 
attainable  in  this  world.  From  that  stage,  also, 
there  not  infrequently  seems  to  be  an  unconscious 
decline.  Indeed,  where  there  is  no  increase  of 
moral  excellence,  there  is  always  danger  of  de- 
crease. Conscience  without  fresh  stimulants  is 
prone  to  grow  inert,  and  this  the  rather  as  the  life 
becomes  less  diversified  and  more  a  routine.  But 
there  is  always  room  for  growth  in  the  prin- 
ciples by  which  conscience  forms  its  verdicts.  In 
purity,  there  may  be  an  ever  more  lofty  and 
delicate  type,  from  the  cleanness  of  heart  with- 
out which  no  man  can  gain  a  glimpse  of  divine 
realities  to  that  heavenly  frame  of  spirit  which 


108  CONSCIENCE. 

is  the  mirror  of  God,  —  in  truth,  from  the  mere 
absence  of  falsity  to  that  perfect  fairness,  candor, 
integrity  of  thought,  which  more  and  more  ex- 
cludes all  coloring  of  prejudice,  and  has  pure, 
white  light  for  its  only  medium  of  vision,  —  in 
love,  from  that  lower  yet  essential  form  which 
works  and  wills  no  ill  to  its  neighbor  to  that  dis- 
fusive  philanthropy  which  holds  every  human 
interest  dear,  and  emulates  Him  of  whom  the  most 
divine  trait  on  record  is,  that  He  "went  about 
doing  good."  By  thus  cultivating  our  moral 
nature  and  capacity,  we  are  constantly  bringing 
conscience  into  ever  more  entire  supremacy.  Its 
judgments,  as  I  have  said,  are  always  true ;  but  at 
the  lower  stages  of  moral  progress  we  are  over- 
prone  to  substitute  other  standards  for  the  Right, 
as  clearly  perceived  and  felt  by  our  own  minds  and 
hearts.  With  every  stage  of  progress  onward 
and  upward,  conscience  becomes  more  and  more 
the  sole  and  sovereign  arbiter,  not  of  word  and 
deed  alone,  but  primarily  of  thought  and  feeling, 
whence  word  and  deed  must  flow. 


LECTURE  V. 

VIRTUE  AND    THE    VIRTUES. 

Virtue  literally  means  manliness.  It  is  de- 
rived from  the  Latin  vir,  which  differs  from  homo, 
the  latter  denoting  man  as  distinguished  from 
woman ;  the  former  implying  man  with  the  char- 
acteristics of  mind  and  soul  that  ought  to  belong 
to  him.  There  is  the  same  difference  in  the  Greek 
between  avrjp  and  avOpw-n-os ;  and  avrjp,  the  old  gram- 
marians say,  is  closely  allied  to  *Aprjs,  the  god  of 
war,  from  whose  name  is  derived  aperrj,  the  Greek 
synonyme  of  the  Latin  virtus.  The  word  virtus 
has  passed  into  the  languages  of  Southern  Europe 
derived  from  the  Latin,  and,  probably  through  the 
Norman-French  route,  into  the  English.  In  each 
language  it  denotes  the  attributes  that  are  re- 
garded as  the  most  manly.  There  is  one  seeming 
exception,  which  yet  is  no  exception.  In  the  Ital- 
ian, virtu  is  employed  to  denote  taste;  and  though 
virtuoso  may  mean  a  virtuous  man,  it  oftener  des- 
ignates a  man  of  taste.  In  this  latter  sense  we 
have  borrowed  the  word,  as  virtu  also,  objects  of 

109 


110  VIRTUE  AND   THE    VIRTUES. 

virtu  being  sometimes  spoken  of.  Words  not 
only  tell  history,  but  there  are  many  words  that 
hold  a  deeper  history  than  they  can  tell,  being 
themselves  history.  There  was  a  time  when  polit- 
ical and  pontifical  oppression  had  crushed  out  of 
the  heart  of  the  Italian  people  all  the  elements 
of  manliness,  and  left  refined  and  exquisite  artisti- 
cal  taste  as  the  only  attribute  on  which  they  could 
base  any  feeling  of  self-respect  ;  while  in  this 
they  were  as  far  in  advance  of  the  other  civilized 
nations  as  they  were  behind  them  in  all  the  hardier 
elements  of  character.  This,  then,  became  their 
manhood,  till  they  had  strength  to  throw  off  their 
double  yoke ;  and  its  record  remains  indelible  in 
their  language. 

Virtus,  that  is,  virtue,  in  the  earlier  time, 
meant  courage  in  war.  As  philosophy  gradually 
made  men  understand  and  feel  the  room  and  de- 
mand for  prowess  in  the  warfare  within,  in  the 
conflict  with  appetite  and  passion,  in  the  unceas- 
ing contest  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  the 
word  took  on  a  moral  signification.  We  accord- 
ingly find  it  used  in  both  senses  in  the  Roman 
classics,  and  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  determine 
in  which  sense  it  is  used.  In  the  English  lan- 
guage, virtue,  so  far  as  I  can  trace  it  back,  has 
always  had  a  moral  signification  when  applied 
to  men,  though  it  means  force  or  efficacy  when 


VIRTUE,    ONE  IN  ITS  ESSENCE.  Ill 

applied  to  things,  as  "the  virtue  of  this  medi- 
cine," or  "by  virtue  of  that  recommendation." 
Early  English  writers  were  wont  to  use  the  word 
with  special  reference  to  militant  goodness,  —  to 
the  strength  of  the  inner  man  in  the  conflict  with 
evil.  It  has  of  late,  however,  been  employed  to 
denote  moral  goodness,  without  reference  to  the 
trials  encountered,  the  obstacles  surmounted,  or 
the  difficulties  overcome.  Yet  we  do  not  use  the 
word  where  wrong-doing  is  impossible.  We  call 
a  little  child,  not  virtuous,  but  innocent.  We  do 
not  call  God  virtuous;  yet  why  should  we  not? 
If  he  is  omnipotent,  evil  is  within  his  power:  he 
freely  chooses  the  right,  and  it  is  on  that  ground 
alone  that  we  call  him  good,  just,  and  holy,  —  on 
no  other  ground  can  we  affirm  moral  attributes  of 
him.  In  his  own  eternally  righteous  will  he  is 
himself  the  supreme  exemplar  of  virtue  for  the 
whole  moral  universe,  thus  enabling  men  in  their 
right-doing  to  be,  in  St.  Paul's  intensely  signifi- 
cant words,  "  followers  of  God  as  dear  children." 
The  best  definition  of  virtue,  in  the  present  use  of 
the  term,  is  conduct  in  conformity  with  the  right, 
or,  more  briefly,  Tightness,  or  righteousness. 

Rightness  is  one  as  to  intent  and  purpose. 
There  may  be  degrees  of  virtue,  various  types  of 
virtue,  as  men  differ  in  capacity  or  proclivity,  or 
as  they  have  been  for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time  in 


112  VIRTUE  AND   TEE   VIRTUES. 

the  practice  of  virtue.  There  are  too,  undoubtedly, 
persons  of  blameless  lives  who  are  not  virtuous, 
and  persons  of  very  faulty  lives  who  are  virtuous. 
But  every  person  either  is  or  is  not  virtuous  ;  that 
is,  has  or  has  not  the  predominant,  prevailing, 
pervading  intention  or  purpose  to  conform  his 
conduct  to  the  right.  There  is  profound  ethical 
truth  in  St.  James's  sajdng,  "  Whosoever  shall 
keep  the  whole  law,  and  yet  offend  in  one  point, 
is  guilty  of  all ; "  that  is,  if  a  man  voluntarily 
yields  to  temptation  at  one  point,  voluntarily  re- 
leases himself  from  one  duty  or  class  of  duties, 
without  any  doubt  that  it  is  morally  incumbent 
upon  him,  because  his  vicious  inclinations  tend 
in  that  direction,  he  shows  as  much  contempt 
for  the  Right  as  such,  as  unright,  as  unvirtuous,  a 
frame  of  mind  and  soul,  as  if  he  sinned  along  the 
whole  line  of  the  commandments.  Moreover,  he 
makes  it  certain,  that,  whenever  equally  strong 
temptations  present  themselves  in  any  other  direc- 
tion, he  will  yield  to  them  also.  Thus,  a  man  will- 
ingly vicious  in  any  one  direction  cannot  be  trusted 
at  any  point.  The  debauchee  may  seem  honest, 
yet  I  should  not  dare  to  leave  a  large  sum  of 
money  with  him  over  night.  The  man  who  cheats 
me  may  seem  chaste  or  temperate,  yet  it  will  re- 
quire no  great  stress  of  temptation  to  make  him 
as  vile  as  he  is  dishonest. 


THE  DIVISION  OF  VIRTUE.  113 

Virtue,  then,  is  one,  and,  so  far  as  motive  and 
principle  are  concerned,  it  is  indivisible.  But  in 
practice  it  is  divisible,  and  the  occasions  for  its 
exercise  must  determine  how  it  shall  be  divided 
1? he  Right  toward  God  and  toward  man,  toward  a 
father  and  toward  an  enemy,  with  reference  to 
inevitable  calamity  and  with  reference  to  strong 
drink,  is  one  and  the  same  right,  but  with  widely 
different  manifestations.  "  Cardinal  virtues  "  is  an 
old  term  in  ethics,  — cardinal,  from  cardo,  a  hinge, 
—  the  essential  virtues,  those  on  which  the  charac- 
ter hinges,  or  turns.  Thus,  honesty  must  be  either 
the  whole  or  a  part  of  a  cardinal  virtue,  as  with- 
out it  one  cannot  be  a  virtuous  man ;  while  gentle- 
ness, precious  and  lovely  as  it  is,  is  not  a  cardinal 
virtue,  there  having  been  virtuous  and  even 
saintly  men  who  were  ungentle. 

Different  writers  vary  greatly  in  their  lists  of 
cardinal  virtues,  and  I  might  fill  the  hour  with  an 
enumeration  of  their  respective  lists  and  the  rea- 
sons for  them.  But  they  are,  most  of  them,  to  me 
unsatisfying,  because  they  are  not  exhaustive. 
We  want  a  division  of  virtue  which  shall  include 
all  the  essential  forms  of  goodness,  —  a  list  of  the 
virtues  all  of  which  shall  be  found"  in  a  really  good 
character,  and  the  absence  of  any  one  of  which 
would  be  incompatible  with  a  virtuous  character. 
Of  coarse,  under  whatever  division  we  make,  there 


114  VIRTUE  AND   THE   VIRTUES. 

must  be  subdivisions.      Let  us  now  see  if  we  can- 
not map  out  the  whole  ground  of  the  Right. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  a  right  as  regards  our- 
selves, body,  mind,  and  soul.  We  may  take  for 
this  the  name  of  prudence,  which  is  broad  enough 
to  include  all  the  care  that  we  ought  to  take  of 
ourselves,  and  all  that  we  ought  to  do  for  our- 
selves. There  is  also  a  right  with  regard  to  our 
fellow-beings,  God,  man,  and  even  beings  of  races 
inferior  to  our  own.  This  we  may  term  justice ; 
for  justice  implies  the  rendering  to  others  their 
due,  what  we  owe  them,  and  we  owe  to  God  piety 
and  its  observances, — we  owe  to  man  charity  and 
kindness  no  less  than  veracity  and  honesty.  Then, 
as  to  outward  events  and  impersonal  objects,  a 
part  of  these  are  beyond  our  control.  What  we 
need  with  reference  to  events  and  objects  of  this 
class  is,  that  we  keep  our  own  manhood  uncor- 
rupted  by  prosperity,  unscathed  by  adversity. 
This  we  may  call  fortitude,  which  literally  means 
strength,  and  is  most  appropriately  applied  to 
the  inward  might  by  which  a  man  holds  his  own 
against  the  outside  world,  whether  in  resisting  the 
enervating  influence  of  wealth,  success,  or  human 
favor,  in  withstanding  peril,  in  submitting  to  dis- 
appointment, or  in  enduring  loss,  pain,  or  grief. 
Then,  finally,  there  are  outward  objects  which  are 
under  our  control,  and  our  dealing  with  which 


THE  CARDINAL    VIRTUES.  115 

makes  a  large  part  of  our  lives.  As  to  these 
objects,  duty  suggests  such  questions  as,  When  ? 
Where?  How?  How  much?  Time,  place,  man- 
ner, and  measure  may  all  be  comprehended  under 
the  head  of  order. 

Prudence,  justice,  fortitude,  and  order,  thus 
defined,  make  up  the  entire  duty  of  man,  —  the 
entire  right.  They  are  all  cardinal  virtues,  nor 
can  either  exist  without  the  others.  No  man  can 
be  true  to  himself,  without  piety,  justice,  and  kind- 
ness, without  the  ability  to  hold  his  own  against 
the  outside  world,  or  without  making  a  fitting 
disposal  and  use  of  the  objects  under  his  com- 
mand. No  one  can  do  his  duty  to  God  or  man 
who  does  not  make  the  most  of  himself  that  he 
can  make,  who  suffers  either  prosperity  or  adver- 
sity to  throw  him  off  his  balance,  or  who  misuses 
the  objects  of  use  and  enjoyment.  No  man  can 
meet  the  events  and  changes  of  life  as  he  ought, 
without  due  self-culture,  without  the  consciousness 
of  right  relations  toward  God  and  man,  or  without 
the  habits  of  self-command  that  are  implied  in  the 
virtue  of  order.  At  the  same  time,  order,  with 
the  numerous  sub-virtues  which  it  includes,  can 
hardly  be  expected  of  one  who  is  not  self-gov- 
erned, who  has  not  a  due  sense  of  the  rights  of 
others,  or  who  is  liable  to  be  unmanned  by  either 
prosperous  or  adverse  fortune.     We  thus  see  how 


116  VIRTUE  AND   THE   VIRTUES. 

the  cardinal  virtues  hinge  into  one  another,  and 
mutually  sustain  and  subsidize  one  another,  each 
rendering  every  other  easy  of  cultivation  and 
practice.  Let  us  now  consider  these  virtues  sep- 
arately. 

We  first  have  prudence,  or  duty,  that  is,  what 
is  due,  to  one's  self.  How  can  I  owe  myself  any 
thing  which  I  have  not  a  right  to  remit?  Surely 
I,  the  creditor,  can  absolve  me,  the  debtor,  from 
any  debt.  If  I  see  fit  to  stint  myself  in  mental  or 
moral  culture,  and  to  lead  a  lazy,  self-indulgent 
life,  so  long  as  I  do  no  harm  to  others,  whose  con- 
cern is  it?  May  I  not  do  what  I  will  with  my 
own?  I  should  not  know  how  to  answer  these 
questions  on  any  other  ground  than  that  of  intrin- 
sic fitness  as  the  basis  of  right.  But  on  this 
ground  we  may,  in  the  first  place,  consider  our 
several  native  powers,  faculties,  capacities,  and 
affections  as  objects  which  have  their  respective 
fitnesses.  Every  property  of  my  nature  is  a  fit- 
ness. Indeed,  this  is  what  the  word  property 
means,  —  that  which  is  appropriate,  or  fit  for.  My 
several  powers  of  body  are  fitted  for  specific  uses, 
either  to  myself  or  to  my  fellow-beings,  and  by  ex- 
cess or  neglect  or  abuse  with  regard  to  any  one 
of  them  I  thwart  this  fitness,  —  I  do  what  is  anal- 
ogous to  my  treating  carelessly,  or  employing  for 
mean   purposes,   implements   or    utensils   of    the 


SELF-CULTURE.  117 

finest  temper  or  the  most  costly  material.  Unfit- 
ting tells  the  whole  story  as  to  all  bodily  wrong- 
doing; and  by  the  fitting  use  of  every  member, 
appetite,  and  faculty  of  the  body  we  incarnate  in 
this  mortal  flesh  the  full  meaning  of  St.  Paul,  who 
used  no  words  without  meaning,  when  he  bids  his 
readers  glorify  God  with  their  bodies,  and  present 
their  bodies  a  living  sacrifice,  and  reminds  them 
that  their  bodies  are  temples  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

In  like  manner  every  mental  faculty  is  fitted 
for  some  specific  use,  in  our  own  culture  or  in  our 
life-work.  The  faculty  which  we  cramp,  or  starve, 
or  gorge,  or  overwork,  fails  of  its  fitting  uses. 
The  mind  can  be  kept  in  working  order  only  by 
the  symmetrical  and  proportionate  exercise  of  all 
its  powers.  Excess  in  any  one  of  them  may  be 
fully  as  harmful  as  under-culture.  Take  the 
memory,  for  instance.  Its  office  is  to  treasure  up 
and  to  keep  within  reach  materials  on  which  the 
reasoning  and  the  reproductive  powers  may  work. 
He  who  is  too  lazy  to  memorize  principles,  general 
laws,  salient  facts,  the  elements  of  science  and  of 
knowledge,  may  condemn  the  more  active  powers 
of  the  mind,  if  they  work  at  all,  to  work  as  a  mill 
might  with  nothing  to  grind;  and  we  certainly 
have  read,  or  have  refused  to  read,  writers,  and 
have  heard  preachers  and  lecturers,  who  ground 
very  well,  while  the  vessels  into  which  the  meal 


118  VIRTUE  AND   THE    VIRTUES. 

or  flour  should  have  fallen  were  in  chronic  emp- 
tiness. The  words  were  well  chosen  and  beau- 
tiful, if  they  had  only  meant  any  thing.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  have  known  men  who  so  over- 
loaded the  memory  that  the  other  powers  had 
ceased  to  work.  They  could  quote,  but  had  lost 
the  capacity  of  reasoning.  Such  men  have  re- 
minded me  of  the  little  coasting-vessels  that  in 
the  Atlantic  States  used  to  carry  freight  before 
the  time  of  railways.  I  have  seen  these  vessels 
not  only  with  holds  crammed  full,  but  with  loose 
freight  lying  round  on  the  deck,  on  the  cabin- 
stairs,  in  the  gangwa}rs,  and  wherever  foot  could 
want  to  tread,  so  that  it  was  a  mystery  to  me  how 
the  sailors  could  so  thread  their  way  about  as  to 
work  the  vessel.  This  example  may  illustrate  the 
necessity  of  giving  to  every  power  of  the  mind 
its  proportionate  culture  and  exercise,  so  that  each 
may  fully  do  its  fitting  work. 

The  affections  also  have  their  fitting  objects. 
This  is  true  even  of  what  are  called  the  malevo- 
lent affections,  which  are  malevolent  only  when 
cherished  to  excess  and  misdirected,  and  much 
more,  of  the  benevolent  affections,  one  or  another 
of  which  is  adapted  to  keep  us  in  our  fit  relation 
toward  every  being  in  the  universe. 

These  powers,  all  cultivated  as  so  many  proper- 
ties or  fitnesses,  each   applied   and  kept   to   the 


JUSTICE.  119 

work  for  which  it  is  fitted,  make  up  a  selfhood, 
human,  yet  in  the  image  of  the  divine,  mortal,  yet 
bearing  the  signature  of  immortality. 

Then,  too,  my  will-power  enables  me  to  regard 
and  treat  objectively  this  aggregate  selfhood. 
My  selfhood  as  a  whole  has  its  fitnesses,  — its  re- 
lations, which  are  themselves  full  of  fitnesses,  to 
God,  to  my  family,  to  my  friends,  to  the  commu- 
nity, to  mankind.  Unless  I  do  the  best  that  I  can 
for  myself,  and  make  the  most  that  I  can  of  my- 
self, I  forfeit  my  fitness  for  and  in  some  or  all  of 
these  relations.  Considering  myself  as  a  part  of 
the  machinery  of  the  universe  —  no  matter  how 
large  or  small  a  part  I  am  destined  to  be,  whether 
a  driving-wheel  or  a  mere  pivot  —  I  am  essential 
to  and  in  my  place  (for  even  the  least  members 
are  necessary),  and  it  is  my  duty  to  keep  myself, 
body,  mind,  and  soul,  in  fit  working  order.  Thus 
we  see  that  our  first  cardinal  virtue  comprehends 
every  form  of  self-care,  self-government,  and  self- 
culture.  All  this  the  truly  prudent  man  must  do 
for  himself. 

It  is  only  he  who  is  thus  prudent  in  the  broad- 
est sense  of  the  word,  that  is  fully  prepared  to 
actualize  the  second  of  the  cardinal  virtues,  jus- 
tice, which  is  the  rendering  of  their  due  to  all 
beings  in  the  universe,  —  to  God  and  to  all  his 
children  and  creatures.     He  who  believes  in  God 


120  VIRTUE  AND   THE  VIRTUES. 

cannot  but  regard  him,  not  only  as  the  ultimate 
Cause,  but  as  in  plan  and  purpose  the  Giver  of 
whatever  life  has  of  enjoyment,  of  happiness,  of 
blessedness.  Much  of  it,  indeed,  comes  through 
intermediate  agencies,  yet  they  can  be  only  of  his 
appointment.  We  can  hardly  call  love  and  grati- 
tude duties ;  for  the  affections  are  not  directly 
under  our  command.  But  prolonged  and  reiter- 
ated thought  on  the  relation  in  which  God's  bene- 
factions place  us  to  him  is  so  manifestly  our  duty, 
that  the  opposite  would  be  in  the  last  degree  un- 
fitting; and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  such 
thought  will  awaken  profound  feeling,  will  spon- 
taneously rise  in  thanksgiving,  and  make  itself 
permanent  in  love.  The  obligation  which  thus 
lays  claim  upon  our  thought,  and  through  thought 
on  feeling,  is  intensified  by  God's  manifestation  in 
and  revelation  through  Jesus  Christ,  inasmuch  as 
through  him  we  are  endowed  with  the  power  to 
perfect  this  earthly  life  after  a  type  which  only 
the  example  of  a  divine  humanity  could  fitly 
frame,  and  only  an  assured  hope  of  immortality 
could  energize.  Our  relation  to  God,  I  hardly 
need  say,  implies  the  obligation  of  ascertaining 
his  will  for  us  to  the  best  of  our  possible  knowl- 
edge, and  actualizing  it  to  the  best  of  our  ability. 
As  to  the  relations  of  the  family,  they  contain 
in  themselves  their  respective  laws  and  measures 


DIVORCE  IN  ROME.  121 

of  fitness  and  obligation,  and  I  need  not  enlarge 
upon  them.  Yet  under  this  head  there  is  one  sub- 
ject on  which,  as  I  think,  public  feeling  in  our 
country  is  retrograde  and  dangerous.  I  refer  to 
the  growing  facility  of  divorce.  Manifestly  the 
chief  office  of  the  family  is  the  care,  nurture,  and 
education  of  children ;  and  it  is  absolutely  cer- 
tain that  under  any  other  social  organism,  this 
great  interest  of  each  successive  generation  must 
suffer  detriment.  The  father  and  the  mother  are 
both  needed  for  this  office.  Those  bereaved  of 
both  parents  are  looked  upon  with  universal  com- 
miseration, and  the  loss  of  either  can  be  in  some 
measure  supplied  only  by  the  capacity  and  willing- 
ness of  the  surviving  parent  to  perform  in  very 
large  part  double  duty.  It  is  an  office  which  can 
be  fitly  performed  only  when  it  is  a  labor  of  love, 
which  it  may,  indeed,  be  with  step-parents,  but 
only  when  there  are  no  associations  with  that  rela- 
tion to  make  it  offensive  or  odious.  The  successor 
of  a  deceased  wife  or  husband  may  be  specially 
chosen  for  the  children's  sake,  or  may  for  love  of 
the  parent  grow  into  love  for  the  children.  But 
not  so  the  husband  or  wife  who  replaces  the 
divorced  parent.  The  children  are  regarded  with 
aversion,  as  tokens  and  reminders  of  a  relation  to 
be  as  far  as  possible  forgotten  or  ignored. 

In  the  best  days  of  ancient  Rome,  divorce  was 


122  VIRTUE  AND   THE    VIRTUES. 

hardly  known.  The  subsequent  freedom  of  di- 
vorce, while  in  part  the  effect,  was  still  more 
a  cumulative  and  accelerating  cause,  of  the  moral 
corruption  that  made  Clodius  and  Catiline,  Cali- 
gula and  Nero,  possible.  The  term  noverca,  step- 
mother, came  to  be  regarded  as  a  name  of  reproach, 
and  suggestive  of  neglect,  cruelty,  poisoning  ;  and 
even  now,  so  prone  are  we  to  retain  obsolete 
meanings  of  words,  the  adjective  "  step-motherly  " 
is  seldom  used  in  other  than  a  bad  sense.  But 
such  associations  are  due  solely  to  the  fact  that 
the  Roman  step-mother  almost  always  succeeded 
a  divorced  mother,  whom  she  had  superseded  by 
her  intrigues,  and  whose  children  were  to  her 
offensive  and  hateful.  The  consequence  was, 
that  in  later  Roman  history  we  no  longer  read  of 
Cornelias  showing  their  children  as  their  jewels, 
but  only  of  children  educated  almost  wholly  by 
slaves,  who,  though  often  more  intelligent  than 
their  masters,  had  like  vices,  only  of  a  coarser 
type. 

The  plea  currently  urged  for  divorce  is  incom- 
patibility of  temper;  but  the  very  possibility  of 
severing  the  connection  is  undoubtedly  the  most 
frequent  cause  of  the  genuineness  and  urgency  of 
this  plea.  The  incompatibility,  perhaps,  exists  at 
the  outset  in  the  majority  of  cases,  and  in  none 
more  than  where  mutual  love  is  the  strongest.     If 


EVILS   OF  DIVORCE.  123 

compatibility  were  the  ground  of  choice,  which  it 
seldom  is,  the  acquaintance  before  marriage  can 
hardly  ever  be  intimate  enough  to  give  assurance 
on  this  point.  But  if  two  persons  of  good  char- 
acter love  each  other  well  enough  to  marry,  and 
expect  to  live  together  always,  the  process  of  mu- 
tual accommodation,  nay,  of  assimilation,  goes  on 
rapidly,  and  in  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty,  before 
there  is  time  for  the  growth  of  mutual  dissatis- 
faction, they  will  attain  to  so  entire  harmony  in 
tastes,  dispositions,  and  habits,  that  they  will  even 
outgrow  the  remembrance  of  such  divergence  as 
there  once  was.  On  the  other  hand,  the  possi- 
bility of  parting  will  be  as  a  hammer  on  a  wedge, 
constantly  widening  any  discrepancy  that  there 
may  be  in  taste  or  temper,  till  reconciliation  is  no 
longer  possible.  In  France,  where  divdce  is  dif- 
ficult, with  those  who  have  not  broken  with  the 
Church  impossible  save  for  the  gravest  cause,  and 
with  all  infrequent,  there  is  probably  more  of 
domestic  harmony,  happiness,  and  mutual  help- 
fulness in  the  respectable  middle  classes  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  civilized  world. 

But  in  this  matter  I  would  plead  mainly  for  the 
children ;  and  in  domestic  life  there  is  nothing 
more  atrociously  unfitting  or  glaringly  un right 
than  that  children  should  be  bereaved  of  their 
parents,  except  by  the  providence  of  God,  or  by 


124  VIRTUE  AND   THE    VIRTUES. 

such  gross  criminality  as  ought  to  put  any  parent 
out  of  office. 

Under  the  head  of  justice  come,  of  course, 
veracity  and  honesty.  Veracity  must  be  defended, 
as  I  said  in  a  former  lecture,  not  on  the  ground  of 
expediency,  which  would  leave  so  many  openings 
for  falsehood  that  truth-telling  would  become  only 
a  contingent,  not  an  absolute,  duty  ;  but  there  is  an 
intrinsic  fitness  in  the  correspondence  of  what  one 
says,  or  writes,  or  in  any  way  intimates,  with 
things  as  they  actually  are.  The  obligation  of 
uniform  and  unfailing  veracity  is  impaired  in  the 
general  mind  by  oaths,  which  create  two  classes 
of  assertions,  assign  to  what  is  sanctioned  by  a 
special  appeal  to  God  the  sacredness  which  fit- 
tingly belongs  to  all  affirmations  and  promises, 
and  thus  trains  men  to  imagine  that  there  is  a 
lower  degree  of  binding  force  where  the  solem- 
nity of  an  oath  is  wanting.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  false  testimony  in  a  court  of  justice 
ought  to  be  punished  with  unsparing  severity ; 
but  it  is  the  opinion  of  not  a  few  of  our  wisest 
jurists,  and  those  of  the  largest  experience,  that 
the  interest  of  truth  and  justice  would  be  better 
served  were  credence  given  to  testimony  on  the 
ground  of  the  witness's  character  rather  than  on 
that  of  his  oath. 

The  duty  of  honesty  cannot  need  special  expo- 


BENEFICENCE.  125 

sition.  But  though  it  be  beyond  the  province  of 
a  scientific  lecture,  I  will  give  in  passing  a  word 
of  counsel,  which  business  men  may  think  super- 
fluous, but  which  probably  many  persons  not  in 
the  habit  of  keeping  accounts,  and  certainly  many 
in  my  profession,  need.  I  have  known  several, 
I  can  almost  say,  in  my  long  life,  many,  instances 
in  which  persons  whom  I  believe  to  have  been 
honest  as  the  day  have  incurred  blame,  sometimes 
suspicion,  by  carelessness  in  their  accounts  of  trust- 
funds,  charity-funds,  and  the  like.  As  for  clergy- 
men, if  one  becomes  unpopular,  and  is  vulnerable 
at  this  point,  he  is  sure  to  be  attacked.  Now, 
whether  a  man  keeps  his  personal  accounts  more 
or  less  accurately,  or  not  at  all,  is  his  own  affair ; 
but  for  every  cent  of  money  that  is  not  his  own, 
he  ought  to  keep,  and  to  be  able  to  show,  as  fair 
an  account  as  a  trained  book-keeper  could  exhibit. 
Beneficence  is  a  part  of  justice.  The  Hebrew 
Psalmist  understood  this  when  he  wrote,  "  The 
righteous  showeth  mercy,  and  giveth."  Other- 
wise he  would  not  be  righteous.  The  needy,  dis- 
tressed, and  helpless  are  as  truly  our  creditors  in 
the  sight  of  God  as  is  the  man  who  has  our  note  of 
hand.  But  it  is  not  mere  alms  that  constitute 
beneficence.  They  are  often  given  to  get  rid  of 
an  applicant,  or  to  preclude  an  uneasy  feeling  in 
case   of  refusal.     Such   gifts,    though   they    may 


126  VIRTUE  AND   THE   VIRTUES. 

warm  and  feed  the  body,  freeze  and  starve  the 
soul,  dispirit  the  receiver,  and,  when  continued, 
permanently  pauperize  him.  Nor  is  this  the  worst 
of  it :  for  pauperism  is  hereditary  ;  and,  as  I  said 
in  a  former  lecture,  there  are  old  towns  in  which 
it  has  descended  to  a  later  than  the  third  or  fourth 
generation.  Public  alms  have  always  a  depress- 
ing and  debasing  influence.  It  is  commonly  said 
that  the  poor  are  ungrateful  for  what  is  by  a 
strange  misnomer  called  public  charity.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  they  are  so ;  if  not,  they  ought  to 
be  ;  for  there  is  no  heart  in  such  enforced  gifts, 
grudged  as  they  are  by  the  givers.  It  is  only  kind- 
ness, that  is,  a  recognition  of  one's  kind,  a  manifes- 
tation of  kindred,  that  wins  gratitude,  and  only 
the  charity  with  which  the  heart  goes  and  in 
which  the  heart  shows  itself,  that  can  be  of  any 
enduring  value.  The  Hebrew  prophet  understood 
this  when  he  added  to  his  description  of  alms- 
doing,  "That  thou  hide  not  thyself  from  thine 
own  flesh."  This  was  the  way  of  Jesus  Christ. 
He  did  not  stand  afar  off,  and  utter  the  healing 
word,  —  he  touched  the  leper,  loathsome  as  he 
was ;  and  I  know  of  nothing  that  at  the  present 
moment  gives  such  assurance  that  his  spirit  is  not 
utterly  whelmed  by  the  rampant  earth-spirits  of 
our  time  as  the  lar^e  number  of  refined  and  deli- 
cate  women  from  affluent   homes,   who   all   over 


FORTITUDE.  127 

Christendom  are  devoting  themselves  to  the  lowli- 
est offices  of  charity,  and  shrink  no  more  than  did 
their  Master  from  the  touch  of  disease  and  suffer- 
ing in  their  direst  forms. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  duty  of  bene- 
ficence is  not  limited  as  to  its  objects  to  our  own 
race,  but  extends  to  all  forms  of  sentient  being,  to 
every  living  thing  that  can  enjoy  or  suffer.  "The 
whole  creation  groans  and  travails"  for  redemption 
from  man's  abused  lordship  over  this  lower  world, 
from  his  wanton  indifference  to  suffering,  from  his 
selfish  pleasure  pursued  at  the  cost  of  life  which 
is  of  right  no  more  his  to  take  away  than  it  is  his 
to  give.  Nor  can  I  think  it  without  meaning  that 
in  the  prophetic  pictures  of  a  regenerated  world 
man's  humbler  co-tenants  always  bear  their  part 
in  the  universal  peace  and  gladness.  Still  more, 
while  in  these  same  pictures  all  the  trees  of  the 
wood  rejoice,  the  desert  blossoms,  and  sheaves  of 
grain  ripen  upon  the  mountain-top,  I  cannot  but 
read  in  them  a  stern  rebuke  of  the  coarse  Vandal- 
ism which  can  deface  and  destroy  to  no  profit 
those  forms  of  life  in  tree,  branch,  leaf,  and  flower, 
though  unconscious,  still  sentient,  that  seem  to 
woo  the  kind  forbearance  with  which  their  grace 
and  beauty  are  in  such  sweet  accord. 

The  third  of  the  cardinal  virtues,  fortitude,  con- 
cerns those  outward  objects  and  events  which  are 


128  VIRTUE  AND   THE   VIRTUES. 

not  under  our  own  control.  To  use  the  world 
and  not  abuse  it,  would  perhaps  be  the  best  sum- 
mary of  what  this  duty  requires.  There  is  no 
condition  of  things  which  may  not  be  tributary  to 
our  growth  in  the  quantity  of  being,  in  mind  and 
soul ;  there  is  none  which  may  not  harm  us  ;  and 
the  alternative  lies  within  our  own  choice.  Pros- 
perity, never  unwelcome,  is  perhaps  more  perilous 
than  adversity ;  and  when  it  does  not  make  a  man 
better,  it  is  sure  to  make  him  worse.  What  one 
needs  is  to  keep  his  external  condition  outside  of 
him,  instead  of  making  it  a  part  of  himself.  The 
man  of  large  wealth  whose  perpetual  self  con- 
sciousness is  that  of  a  rich  man  as  contradistin- 
guished from  those  who  are  not  rich,  has  but 
a  mean,  poor  spirit.  On  the  other  hand,  he  whose 
self-consciousness  is  that  of  a  man  having  outside 
of  himself  large  ability  to  be  generous  and  helpful, 
but  not  therefore  any  more  of  a  man,  maintains 
the  separation  which  it  is  fit  for  a  human  soul  to 
maintain  from  its  outward  belongings  and  hav- 
ings, and  he  makes  of  himself  more  of  a  man,  not 
by  having  wealth,  but  by  so  using  it  as  to  have 
less  of  it. 

Among  adverse  outward  circumstances,  or  rath- 
er among  those  commonly  so  regarded,  are  obsta- 
cles in  the  way  of  our  plans  and  our  endeavors. 
They  are  adverse  if  we  make  them  so,  not  other- 


COURAGE.  129 

wise.  If  we  let  them  stop  our  way,  or  go  out  of 
our  way  to  avoid  them,  or  meanly  crawl  round 
them,  they  retard,  and  hinder,  and  dishearten  us. 
But  obstacle  is  a  figurative  word  that  is  full  of 
meaning,  and  so  is  surmount,  the  verb  which  we  are 
wont  to  apply  to  it.  An  obstacle  is  a  stumbling- 
block,  and  to  surmount  it  is  to  mount  upon  it,  and 
thus  to  rise  into  a  clearer  air,  with  a  vigor  made 
elastic  by  climbing.  It  has  been  no  uncommon 
thing  for  a  man  to  look  back  upon  the  obstacles 
that  he  has  surmounted  as  the  most  efficient  fac- 
tors of  his  character  and  of  his  success  in  life. 
This  is  the  case  with  almost  all  of  those  who  are 
termed  self-made  men.  Obstacles  have  borne  a 
very  large  part  in  the  making  of  them. 

Then,  there  are  perils  to  be  encountered  on  our 
lifeway ;  and  these  must  be  met,  not  with  the  reck- 
less bravery  called  physical  courage,  which  is  the 
result  of  animal  spirits,  not  of  virtue,  but  with 
the  profound  and  ever-active  feeling  that  no  cause 
of  alarm,  not  even  death  itself,  can  impair  the 
soul's  true  life.  There  is,  too,  a  moral  courage, 
which  physically  brave  men  have  often  lacked; 
for  men  have  often  thrown  away  their  lives  be- 
cause they  were  afraid  to  do  right.  Thus,  among 
those  who  have  fallen  in  duels,  there  have  been 
not  a  few  who  have  regarded  duelling  as  morally 
wrong,  but  who  dared  not  to  face  the  shame  of 


130  VIRTUE  AND   THE   VIRTUES. 

refusing  a  challenge.  At  transition-epochs  in  po- 
litical life,  at  times  of  religious  persecution,  and  in 
the  progress  of  great  moral  reforms,  men  have 
often  suffered  worse  than  death,  in  the  sacrifice  of 
a  good  name  on  earth  for  a  "name  written  in 
heaven,"  in  the  desertion  of  friends,  in  the  scorn 
and  hatred  of  those  whose  esteem  they  would 
have  most  prized,  and  not  infrequently  in  making 
enemies  in  their  own  families. 

Then,  again,  there  are  disappointments  which 
sometimes  involve  a  change  of  the  entire  life  way, 
or  the  failure  of  plans  reaching  very  far  .on  into 
the  future.  Here  we  need  to  feel  that  the  life, 
that  is,  the  inward  life,  is  the  one  momentous  inter- 
est, and  that  its  way,  the  way  to  its  consumma- 
tion, is  a  matter  of  entirely  secondary  concern, 
inasmuch  as  the  life  can  always  light  and  smooth 
and  gladden  the  way. 

There  is  also  the  demand  for  patience  under 
sickness,  infirmity,  suffering,  privation,  bereave- 
ment,—  burdens,  not  infrequently,  from  which 
there  is  no  possible  relief  in  this  world.  The 
inner  life,  as  we  have  all  seen,  may  be  made  not 
only  serene,  but  radiantly  happy,  under  the  most 
adverse  outward  conditions,  and  there  is  often 
under  their  pressure  a  growth  of  character  so 
rapid  as  to  indicate  their  special  adaptation  to  the 
culture  of  the  highest  spiritual  graces.     In  many 


ORDER.  131 

years  of  experience  in  ministering  to  the  afflicted, 
a  service  in  which  I  have  often  been  conscious  of 
receiving  in  mind  and  heart  much  more  than  I 
could  give,  I  have  found  patience  sustained,  first, 
by  faith,  confirmed  by  experience,  in  the  benefi- 
cent design  of  an  afflictive  Providence ;  secondly, 
by  the  example  of  Him  who,  as  the  Scriptures 
say,  was  "made  perfect  through  sufferings;"  and 
thirdly,  by  an  assured  hope  of  immortality,  so  that 
one  co.uld  look  beyond  earthly  endurance  to  the 
full  enjoyment  of  its  revenue  where  there  will  be 
no  grief  or  pain. 

The  fourth  cardinal  virtue,  order,  embraces  a 
large  portion  of  the  conduct  of  daily  life.  It 
comprehends  the  fit  division  of  time.  A  vast 
deal  of  time  is  wasted  from  not  being  properly 
laid  out.  He  who  is  irregular  in  his  industry  is 
often  at  a  loss  what  to  do  next,  and  forfeits  also 
the  unconscious  preparation  in  thought  and  feel- 
ing which  one  can  hardly  fail  to  make  for  what  he 
knows  that  he  is  going  to  do.  Procrastination  is, 
of  course,  to  be  shunned ;  and  it  would  be  super- 
fluous to  lay  stress  on  the  trite  rule,  "  Never  put 
off  till  to-morrow  what  ought  to  be  done  to-day." 
But  I  attach  almost  equal  importance  to  a  rule  by 
no  means  trite,  "  Never  do  to-day  the  work  that 
belongs  to  the  morrow."  The  work  done  too  soon 
is  apt  to  be  hurried,  to  lack  due  preparation,  and 


132  VIRTUE  AND   TUE   VIRTUES. 

to  put  what  belongs  to  the  passing  day.  out  of 
place. 

Punctuality  in  one's  engagements  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  essential  part  of  honesty.  What 
right  have  I  to  steal  other  men's  time  that  is  often 
worth  more  than  money,  which  would  not  permit 
me  to  steal  their  money  too  ?  Yet  having  myself 
been  trained  and  accustomed  to  exactness  in  keep- 
ing appointments,  I  have  been  restrained  only  by 
my  respect  for  rhythm  from  substituting  punctual- 
ity for  the  word  which  Young  employs  in  that  so 
often  quoted  verse,  "  Procrastination  is  the  thief 

Of  time." 

Order  in  place  helps  order  in  time  ;  for  he  who 
does  not  put  things  where  they  ought  to  be,  wastes 
time  in  endeavoring  to  find  them.  Order  in  place, 
too,  has  a  deeper  moral  significance  and  value. 
It  is  essential  to  neatness,  in  person,  and  in  the 
apartments  where  one  works  or  lives;  and  in  the 
absence  of  neatness,  there  can  be  no  attractive 
power.  The  unneat  home  repels  its  inmates;  and 
many  a  dangerous  place  of  resort  owes  its  throngs 
of  customers  to  the  slatternliness  which  super- 
sedes the  quiet  and  comfort  that  befit  the  domes- 
tic hearth,  and  in  which,  if  one  sought  repose,  he 
would  be,  to  borrow  a  scriptural  figure,  like  him 
"  that  lieth  on  the  top  of  a  mast." 

Under  the   head  of  order  comes  the  question, 


TEMPERANCE.  133 

How  much  ?  which  is  to  be  asked  especially  with 
regard  to  every  thing  appertaining  to  the  indul- 
gence of  the  appetites  and  the  festive  side  of  life. 
With  reference  to  all  these  things,  the  question  is 
between  excess,  temperance,  and  abstinence.  I  am 
speaking  now,  not  particularly  of  strong  drink, 
but,  in  general,  of  all  objects  of  desire  and  modes 
of  enjoyment.  As  to  what  is  injurious  in  itself, 
or  necessarily  of  bad  example,  there  can  be  no 
question  that  abstinence  is  a  duty,  and  it  is  on  one 
or  the  other  of  these  grounds  that  rests  such  obli- 
gation as  there  may  be  to  shun  entirely  the  use  of 
distilled  or  fermented  liquors.  Whether  wine 
comes  under  this  category,  it  will  be  time  enough 
to  say  when  we  have  wine  to  dispute  about.  In 
this  country  we  have  little  pure  wine  in  our  mar- 
ket, even  from  California.  A  very  large  pro- 
portion of  what  is  offered  for  sale  as  wine  is  of 
home  manufacture  ;  and  much  of  the  rest  is  so 
adulterated  that  the  vine,  were  it  self-conscious, 
would  never  recognize  its  own  pretended  prod- 
uct. But  with  regard  to  objects  of  desire  in 
general,  luxuries,  amusements,  recreations,  I  need 
not  condemn  excess,  —  no  one  pleads  for  it ; 
but  I  will  say  that  excess  in  food,  though  less 
discreditable,  is  hardly  less  blameworthy,  than 
excess  in  drink,  nor  yet  less  injurious,  though 
it  is  stupefying   rather  than   maddening,  and   is, 


134  VIRTUE  AND   THE   VIRTUES. 

of  course,  less  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  com- 
munity. 

Abstinence,  on  the  other  hand,  has  nothing  to 
commend  it.  It  grew  from  the  Oriental  dualism, 
according  to  which  Satan  made  men's  bodies  and 
the  outward  world,  while  God  made  the  soul ;  and 
Satan  therefore  was  most  effectually  defied  and  af- 
fronted by  abstinence.  Hence  the  origin  of  fast- 
ing as  a  religious  observance.  The  Jews  had  no 
fasts  till  they  learned  to  fast  religiously  in  Baby- 
lon. Their  law  has  no  fast-days.  Jesus  Christ 
evidently  thought  very  little  of  fasting,  and  we 
have  no  tokens  of  the  practice  in  the  primitive 
Church.  The  Christian  Lent  was  at  the  outset  a 
dietetic  practice.  The  principal  animal  food  in 
the  East  was  obtained  from  the  young  of  domestic 
beasts ;  and  Lent  came  at  a  time  when  they  were 
too  immature  for  use,  while  the  spring  vegetables 
were  in  their  prime  of  succulence  and  flavor.  In 
our  climate  it  comes  too  early.  For  all  things  not 
bad  in  themselves,  or  of  bad  example,  temperance, 
not  abstinence,  should  be  the  rule.  Were  the 
necessaries  of  life  alone  used,  half  the  world 
would  be  idle.  It  is  by  the  manufacture  and  sale 
of  superfluities  that  the  majority  of  mankind  sup- 
ply the  needs  and  comforts  of  daily  life.  Taste 
and  refinement  would  perish  were  abstinence  the 
rule.      They   are   educated   and   satisfied   almost 


GOOD  MANNERS.  135 

wholly  by  luxuries,  gratifications,  and  amuse- 
ments which  a  rigid  ascetic  would  spurn.  More- 
over, there  must  always  be  in  every  community 
the  young  and  the  gay,  who  cannot  be  bound  by 
any  rule  of  abstinence,  but  who  by  wise  counsel 
and  example  may  in  their  recreations  be  guided  in 
choice,  and  restrained  in  measure,  if  those  of  ma- 
turer  wisdom  and  ripe  moral  discernment  will 
show  and  lead  the  way.  The  less  of  asceticism 
there  is  among  the  older  and  more  serious  mem- 
bers of  a  community,  the  less  tendency  is  there  to 
excess  and  dissipation  on  the  part  of  those  who 
might  be  easily  tempted  to  evil. 

I  ought  to  add,  though  in  the  fewest  words  pos- 
sible, that  under  the  head  of  order,  and  under  the 
question  How?  good  manners  form  an  essential 
part  of  good  morals.  "  The  Christian  is  the  high- 
est style  of  man,"  says  the  poet,  and  I  would  turn 
the  line  into  prose  by  making  the  affirmation  of 
the  Christian  gentleman ;  for  he,  whatever  his 
religious  profession  or  seeming,  is  not  half  regen- 
erated, and  needs  to  be  born  again,  whose  soul  is 
not  penetrated  through  and  through,  and  his 
whole  life  irradiated,  by  the  gentleness,  meekness, 
courtesy,  sweetness,  kindness,  inseparable  from  a 
mature  Christian  character. 


LECTURE  VI. 

PRINCIPLES,  RULES,  AND  HABITS. 

Principle  means  a  beginning,  —  that  which  is 
taken  first.  In  every  science,  the  principles  are 
the  ultimate  truths,  behind  which  one  cannot  go, 
from  which  all  other  truths  may  be  inferred,  and 
by  which  all  alleged  truths  may  be  tested.  It  is 
the  property  of  a  principle  that  it  cannot  be  de- 
fined, or  reduced  to  any  thing  more  simple  than 
itself.  Thus,  in  geometry  the  few  self-evident 
axioms  are  the  principles  of  the  science,  and  all 
the  complex  and  intricate  theorems  about  cones, 
pyramids,  and  spheres  are  derived  from  those 
principles.  In  conduct,  principles  are  ultimate 
laws,  self-justifying,  not  to  be  reasoned  about,  but 
containing  their  own  reason, — laws  from  which  all 
right  rules  of  conduct  must  be  derived,  and  to 
which  all  right  conduct  must  be  conformed. 

This  is  not  the  way  in  which  the  word  is  com- 
monly used.  How  often  do  you  hear  a  man 
speaking  of  something  as  against  his  principles! 
as  if  he  had  a  certain  set  of  principles  as  his  own 

136 


PURITY.  137 

private  property,  which  authorize  for  him  a  course 
of  conduct  that  would  not  be  required  of  any 
other  man  under  like  circumstances.  I  can  have 
no  principles  but  those  which  you  and  all  man- 
kind have,  or  ought  to  have.  If  I  have  any  thing 
else  which  I  call  by  that  name,  my  calling  it  so 
cannot  make  it  so ;  and  if  I  refuse  to  perform  an 
act  of  justice  or  of  kindness,  or  perform  an  act  of 
an  opposite  complexion,  on  the  plea  of  principle, 
I  am  doubly  guilty,  for  the  specific  act,  and  for  the 
alleged  principle  which  is  nothing  else  than  a  con- 
tinuous and  chronic  sin. 

Principles  in  morals  have  the  force  of  reasons. 
The  ultimate  laws  of  conduct  must  contain  the 
reasons  why  I  should  do,  or  not  do.  The  cardinal 
virtues  define  what  I  ought  to  do ;  moral  princi- 
ples contain  the  reasons  for  those  virtues.  These 
reasons  must  be  founded  on  my  own  nature,  such 
as  I  can  discern  intuitively  and  feel  spontaneously, 
without  needing  to  arrive  at  them  by  a  process  of 
argument. 

I  think  that  we  can  reduce  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  human  duty  to  three, — purity,  growth, 
and  love.  These  principles  run  along  the  whole 
line  of  the  virtues,  comprehend  them  all,  sanction 
them  all,  and  can  sanction  nothing  that  is  outside 
of  them  or  inconsistent  with  them. 

Purity,  as  a  principle  of  conduct,  is  a  necessar; 


UfflVEE 


138      PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

and  self-evident  inference  from  the  dual  nature 
of  man  and  the  universe,  from  the  juxtaposition 
of  soul  and  body,  of  flesh  and  spirit.  I  have  no 
doubt  of  the  reality  of  this  distinction  as  a  physi- 
ological fact;  but  even  if  mind  or  soul  be  but  a  de- 
velopment or  a  modification  of  matter,  it  yet,  in  all 
that  appertains  to  human  character  and  conduct, 
is  a  distinct  entity.  There  is  a  selfhood,  a  char- 
acter, endowed  with  such  properties  as  mere  mat- 
ter, or  mere  body,  cannot  have ;  and  there  are 
ways  in  which  this  selfhood  is  impaired,  coars- 
ened, degraded,  by  material  associations.  There 
is  a  cleanness  of  soul,  which  the  developed  soul 
knows  intuitively  to  be  its  right  and  its  duty. 
There  are  bodily  conditions  and  acts  which  inev- 
itably make  the  soul  impure,  —  which  equally  pro- 
ceed from  and  inspire  thoughts  and  feelings  that 
are  to  the  soul  what  mire  is  to  the  hands  or  feet, 
or  bilge-water  to  the  nostrils.  There  are  human 
associations  which,  unless  one  enters  into  them 
with  the  purpose,  energ}^,  and  zeal  of  an  antago- 
nist and  a  reformer,  are  necessarily  defiling.  There 
are  uses  of  outward  objects,  apart  from  their 
employment  for  the  gratification  of  the  appetites, 
which  adulterate  the  spiritual  nature.  Thus,  ava- 
rice, or  the  over-earnest  pursuit  of  wealth,  intro- 
duces into  the  interior  life  elements  essentially 
mean   and   base,  justifying   the   apostle's    phrase 


GROWTH.  139 

"filthy  lucre,"  and  making  the  term  "vile," 
which  we  sometimes  apply  to  pecuniary  trans- 
actions, not  metaphorical,  but  literally  true.  Too 
close  dependence,  even  on  the  legitimate  comforts 
and  luxuries  of  life,  materializes  the  soul,  blends 
with  its  life  elements  that  do  not  properly  belong 
to  it,  and  thus  makes  it  less  than  pure. 

All  the  duties  under  the  head  of  fortitude  are 
demanded  by  purity  as  a  principle.  Fortitude 
consists  in  warding  off  the  outside  world  from  the 
soul,  —  in  not  suffering  either  prosperous  or  ad- 
verse events  so  to  mix  themselves  with  it  as  to 
impair  its  integrity.  The  soul's  life  ought  to 
flow  on  through  the  world  like  a  river  which  takes 
no  soil  from  its  banks,  but  draws  into  itself  only 
pure  rills  and  brooks  that  swell  its  volume,  and 
speed  its  course.  Thus,  by  means  of  the  virtues 
comprehended  under  the  title  of  fortitude,  the 
soul,  in  passing  through  its  various  fortunes,  takes 
into  its  bosom  nothing  that  can  befoul  it,  but  only 
those  influences  through  which,  under  the  alchemy 
of  God's  spiritual  providence,  all  things  work 
together  for  its  good. 

This  leads  me  to  the  next  principle, — growth. 
The  very  capacity  of  growth  makes  it  a  funda- 
mental law  of  our  being.  We  cannot  say  why ; 
we  cannot  go  behind  this  law  to  justify  it ;  there- 
fore it  is  a  principle.     We  instinctively  feel  that 


140      PRINCIPLES,    RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

a  stationary  human  mind  and  soul  would  be  an 
absurdity,  an  unseemly  excrescence  on  human 
society,  a  being  wholly  out  of  place,  and  this, 
even  for  the  few  years  of  our  earthly  being,  im- 
measurably more  so,  when  we  consider  man  as 
endowed  with  the  power  of  an  endless  life. 

This  principle  finds  expression  in  all  four  of  the 
cardinal  virtues.  The  chief  parts  of  prudence 
are  self-government,  which  prevents  the  soul  from 
becoming  less,  and  self-culture,  whose  office  is  to 
make  it  more.  Fortitude,  as  I  have  said,  extracts 
from  both  sides  of  human  experience  all  that  can 
minister  to  the  soul's  increase,  while  it  rejects 
whatever  they  have  of  the  earthy  element  that 
can  obstruct  its  growth.  In  our  intercourse  with 
our  fellow-beings,  if  it  be  just  and  kind,  we  are 
receiving  while  we  give,  and  are  the  more  richly 
receivers  the  more  freely  and  disinterestedly  we 
give ;  while  in  rendering  to  all,  to  God  and  man, 
their  due,  there  are  some  of  these  dues  which  are 
directly  and  intensely  helpful  to  the  growth  of 
those  who  render  them,  —  as  when  we  offer  to 
God  the  tribute  of  praise  and  prayer  and  loving 
contemplation,  and  when  we  enter  into  the  rela- 
tions which  love  and  reverence  demand  with  our 
superiors  in  wisdom  and  goodness.  Then,  again, 
all  of  order  that  we'  establish  and  maintain  in  the 
microcosm   under   our   immediate   control,   is   of 


RULES,   FOUNDED   ON  PRINCIPLES.      141 

essential  service  in  our  self-discipline,  —  in  the 
order  and  harmony  which  ought  to  reign  in  and 
among  our  appetites,  desires,  affections,  and  active 
powers,  and  without  which  there  can  be  no  healthy 
growth. 

In  the  third  place,  love  toward  all  our  fellow- 
beings  is  a  principle.  Why  should  we  not  love 
them  ?  Who  can  say  ?  Equally  little  can  we  say 
why  we  should  love  them.  All  that  we  can  say 
is,  that  we  feel  that  we  ought  to  love  them.  Love, 
then,  is  an  intuitive  principle.  It  inspires  equally 
piety,  what  is  commonly  called  justice,  and  benefi- 
cence, thus  embracing  the  negative  of  all  that  is 
unfair  and  unkind  (for  "  love  worketh  no  ill  to  its 
neighbor"),  and  the  positive  discharge  of  the  entire 
round  of  relative  duties. 

All  right  rules,  as  I  have  said,  must  be  con- 
formed to  principles.  It  is  so  in  the  mathematical 
and  physical  sciences.  In  these  the  rules  are  but 
the  application  of  principles;  and  as  they  often 
save  time,  strength,  and  labor,  they  are  of  vast 
practical  benefit.  Thus,  in  arithmetic,  the  old 
"  rule  of  three  "  —  I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  in 
the  school  arithmetics  now :  if  it  is  not,  it  ought 
to  be  —  was  founded  on  the  eternal  principle  that 
ill  a  proportion  the  product  of  the  means  is  equal 
to  that  of  the  extremes,  and  it  solved  an  ordinary 
arithmetical    problem    in   half   the   time    that   it 


142      PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

would  have  taken  to  examine  the  principle  afresh, 
and  to  start  from  it  anew.  So  in  moral  conduct, 
it  is  an  economy  of  time  and  thought,  as  to  a 
question  or  a  class  of  questions  that  is  likely  to 
recur  often,  to  have  a  fixed  rule  by  which  to 
determine  action  in  each  particular  instance. 

Then,  too,  there  are  occasions  when  strong  and 
not  very  wrong  feeling  might  lead  us  to  a  wrong 
or  dangerous  act,  but  for  a  rule  which  would  pre- 
clude it.  Let  me  illustrate  what  I  mean  by  a 
very  simple  case,  the  like  of  which  may  occur  in 
any  young  man's  experience.  A  student,  very 
fond  of  whist,  on  entering  college,  laid  down  for 
himself  as  a  rule,  that  he  would,  on  no  account 
whatever,  play  for  money.  On  one  occasion  he 
found  himself  in  the  company  of  men  considera- 
bly his  seniors,  one  of  them  a  graduate,  who 
needed  him  to  make  a  complement  for  a  couple 
of  whist-tables.  He  took  his  seat,  and  found  that 
a  small  stake  was  to  be  played  for.  The  men 
were  not  gamblers.  The  stake  was  little  more 
than  nominal.  He  rose  from  the  table,  declined 
playing  even  for  the  smallest  stake,  and  was  at  first 
laughed  at  for  his  scruples ;  but  as  he  was  needed 
for  the  game,  they  yielded  to  him,  and  he  kept  his 
rule  inviolate.  Had  it  not  been  for  his  rule,  he 
would  undoubtedly  have  surrendered  his  prefer- 
ence in  that  one  instance,  have  had  no  scruples  of 


RULES,   FOR   OURSELVES  ALONE.         143 

the  kind  afterward,  and  might  not  improbably, 
with  his  love  of  the  game,  have  become  a  gam- 
bler. Who  can  say  how  many, there  are  whom 
such  rules  have  kept,  and  how  many  more  they 
would  have  kept,  from  that  neutral  border-ground 
on  the  confines  of  the  Right  and  the  Wrong, 
which  is  Satan's  chief  hunting-ground? 

Under  the  head  of  purity,  our  rules  will  be,  for 
the  most  part,  exclusive  rather  than  permissive. 
Whatever  we  suppose  to  be  of  harmful,  or  even 
doubtful,  influence,  demands  not  to  be  temporized 
with,  but  to  be  utterly  renounced.  If  there  is  any 
recreation,  pursuit,  indulgence,  association,  by 
which  our  tone  of  feeling  is  lowered,  and  our  bet- 
ter nature  worsened,  total  abstinence  should  be 
the  imperative  rule. 

But  in  all  matters  of  this  sort  as  to  which,  on 
general  grounds,  there  is  room  for  question,  we 
should  make  rules  for  ourselves  alone,  instead  of 
attempting  to  force  them  on  others,  or  blaming 
others  for  non-compliance  with  them.  Thus,  he 
who  regards  wine-drinking,  however  moderate,  as 
perilous  for  himself,  is  bound  in  duty  to  abstain 
entirely  from  it ;  but  it  is  not  his  duty  to  speak  or 
think  ill  of  his  really  worthy  and  temperate  neigh- 
bor who  holds  a  different  opinion.  If  I  think 
that  I  should  be  a  worse  man  for  frequenting  the 
theatre,  nothing  ought  ever  to   tempt  me  to  go ; 


144       PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

but  T  have  no  right  to  blame  my  friend  who  sa}rs 
that  he  has  found  the  theatre  a  school  of  good 
morals.  Constitutions  of  soul  vary  no  less  widely 
than  those  of  body,  and  there  are  few  specific 
rules  that  will  apply  equally  to  all.  There  are 
many  strange  idiosyncrasies  of  soul.  One  of  the 
most  devout  men  and  impressive  preachers  in  the 
ministry  of  the  last  generation  was  a  devourer  of 
good  novels,  and  professed  to  be  nourished  by 
them  in  mind  and  soul,  and  often  to  find  in  them 
the  best  preparation  for  the  pulpit.  It  was  a 
unique  case,  like  that  of  the  Bavarian  peasants 
who  thrive  on  arsenic.  But  as  a  prudent  man 
knows  and  shuns  the  food  that  is  wont  to  hurt 
him,  and  would  deem  himself  weak  and  foolish 
were  he  ever  to  touch  it,  so,  as  moral  and  spiritual 
beings,  we  should  take  distinct  cognizance  of  the 
things  that  do  us  harm,  and  not  indulge  in  them 
occasionally  and  moderately,  but  forsake  and  re- 
nounce them  absolutely  and  utterly ;  and  we  do 
this  the  more  easily  if  we  lay  down  for  ourselves 
imperative  rules  concerning  them. 

There  is  one  thing  to  be  borne  in  mind  with 
regard  to  these  rules.  If  they  are  adopted  for  the 
sake  of  the  character,  they  are  not  to  yield  to  any 
alteration  in  our  outward  circumstances.  Right 
and  wrong  are  not  affected  by  change  of  latitude. 
If  for  my  own  sake  I  avoid  a  recreation,  or  amuse- 


EXCLUSIVE  RULES.  145 

ment,  or  indulgence  in  my  present  place  of  resi- 
dence where  it  is  neither  prevalent  nor  fashion- 
able, my  relation  to  it  will  not  be  changed  if  I  go 
to  live  where  it  is  both  prevalent  and  fashionable. 
It  can  be  no  more  salutary  to  me  in  one  place 
than  in  another.  Conformity  in  mere  matters  of 
taste  and  custom  is  always  graceful ;  but  where 
moral  well-being  is  concerned,  one  should  carry 
his  soil  with  him  when  he  transplants  himself. 

I  doubt  whether  there  will  ever  be  any  actual 
need  of  our  repealing  the  class  of  rules  of  which 
I  am  speaking,  —  exclusive  rules,  rules  for  abstain- 
ing. It  is  hardly  possible  that  any  thing  which 
we  forbid  to  ourselves  as  injurious  to  our  well- 
being  can  become  of  essential  benefit  to  us.  The 
only  justifying  reason  for  repealing  a  rule  once 
established  is  a  change,  not  in  our  own  social 
medium,  but  in  the  nature  of  what  we  thought  it 
good  to  abstain  from.  For  instance,  when  I  was 
a  young  man,  the  theatre  in  Boston,  and  probably 
elsewhere,  had,  and  undoubtedly  deserved,  so  low 
a  moral  reputation  that  a  soberly  trained  youth, 
who  cared  for  his  own  moral  well-being,  was 
bound  in  duty  not  to  frequent  it,  and  it  would 
have  been  better  for  him  not  to  go  to  it  at  all ; 
and  there  are  probably  among  my  surviving 
coevals  those  who  have  adhered  to  the  rule  against 
theatre-going    which   it   was   fitting   for  them  as 


146       PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

young  men  to  form.  But  so  great  a  change  has 
taken  place  in  the  theatre,  its  actors,  and  its  fre- 
quenters, that  a  young  man  of  excellent  aim  and 
purpose  might  now  see  no  good  reason  for  forbid- 
ding himself  occasional  attendance. 

As  regards  growth,  there  are  abundant  reason 
and  scope  for  rules  as  to  times  and  ways.  There 
must  be  methods  and  fixed  seasons  for  study,  in 
order  to  any  adequate  progress  in  knowledge  or 
in  the  capacity  of  utilizing  what  we  know.  As  to 
the  exercises  of  devotion,  there  is  no  little  reason 
for  system  in  the  fact  that  a  very  great  part  of  our 
e very-day  life,  while  it  makes  large  drafts  on  reli- 
gious feeling,  does  not  directly  feed  it.  In  not  a 
few  of  our  ordinary  and  necessary  pursuits,  the 
fire  on  the  heart-altar,  if  kept  alive,  must  be  sus- 
tained by  such  fuel  as  we  carry  with  us,  not  by 
what  we  find.  Hence  the  fitness  of  stated  times 
when  we  can  lay  in  such  fuel.  Of  Sundaj^- 
keeping  I  shall  speak  in  another  connection.  I 
would  now  simply  suggest  the  intrinsic  fitness  of 
the  seasons  for  self-recollection,  devout  thought, 
and  communion  with  the  Supremely  Good,  com- 
mended from  earliest  time  by  saintly  precept  and 
example,  before  the  beginning  and  at  the  close  of 
each  day's  active  life.  He  who  should  make  this 
the  rule,  with  exceptions  only  when  they  were  of 
absolute  necessity,  would  find  the  aroma  of  the 


COMPREHENSIVE  RULES.  117 

morning  incense  lingering  in  the  soul  till  mid-day, 
and  the  smoke  of  the  evening  sacrifice  beginning 
to  rise  when  the  shadows  turn.  Still  further,  as  at 
once  hallowing  and  sweetening  home-life,  I  attach 
no  little  importance  to  the  old  and  obsolescent 
rule  and  practice  of  family  worship ;  and  for  him 
or  her  who  exercises  this  home-priesthood,  the  ser- 
vice must  be  of  hardly  less  worth  than  the  more 
private  exercises  of  devotion. 

Under  the  head  of  purity,  I  have  said  that  our 
rules  should  be  rules  of  exclusion :  under  that  of 
love,  they  should  be  rules,  never  of  exclusion,  al- 
ways of  the  widest  comprehension.  No  matter 
how  just  an  exclusive  rule  under  this  head  may 
seem,  and  how  just  it  may  really  be  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten,  if  there  can  possibly  be  a  tenth  case 
in  which  it  will  be  unfair  or  unkind,  the  rule  is  an 
immoral  one.  Some  man  may  say  to  you,  with  a 
self-righteous  air,  as  if  claiming  superlative  credit 
for  practical  wisdom,  "  I  make  it  a  rule  never  to 
give  any  thing  to  a  beggar  at  my  door,"  or,  "  My 
rule  is  never  to  look  at  a  subscription-paper,"  or, 
"  It  is  my  invariable  rule  never  to  give  any  thing 
to  an  able-bodied  man."  Yet  in  all  probability 
this  person  will  now  and  then  dismiss  unaided 
some  worthy  applicant.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
man  or  woman,  who  in  a  place  small  enough 
to   render  this  possible,   should   frame   the   rule, 


148       PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

"  Whenever  a  person  living  here  applies  to  me  for 
alms,  I  will  look  into  the  case,  and  act  as  may 
seem  best : "  or,  if  one  will  make  the  more  general 
rule,  "  Whenever  I  am  asked  for  alms,  I  will  in- 
quire into  the  case  so  far  as  I  am  able,  and  act 
according  to  my  best  discretion,"  such  a  rule  in 
its  comprehensiveness  is  in  harmony  with  the 
principle  of  love,  aside  from  which  any  special 
rules  of  conduct  that  we  may  shape  are  merely 
selfishness  systematized.  In  fine,  under  the  head 
of  love,  no  rules  can  be  self-justifying  that  leave 
out  of  their  scope  any  human  being  that  has  a 
right  to  our  sympathy  and  our  charity. 

Rules,  of  course,  create  habits;  and  without 
express  rules,  habits  are  continually  in  the  process 
of  formation  in  the  earlier  years  of  life,  and  have 
largely  the  control  of  its  later  years.  I  know 
nothing  more  closely  applicable  to  an  extensive 
class  of  habits  than  Christ's  words  to  Peter  :  — 
"  When  thou  wast  young,  thou  girdedst  thyself, 
and  walkedst  whither  thou  wouldest :  but  when 
thou  shalt  be  old,  thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy 
hands,  and  another  shall  gird  thee,  and  carry  thee 
whither  thou  wouldest  not."  How  many  there  are 
who  are  either  the  slaves  of  habit,  or  have  been 
emancipated  only  by  what  seemed  a  life-and-death 
struggle  !  Yet  this  represents  only  one  side.  In 
other  aspects,  the  capacity  of  forming  habits  is  of 


WORTH   OF  HABITS.  149 

inestimable  value ;  and  there  are  two  classes  of 
habits  of  which  this  is  true.  There  are,  in  the 
first  place,  habits  which  have  in  themselves  no 
moral  character,  yet  have  a  large  moral  value  in 
facilitating  the  movements  of  daily  life,  and  in 
smoothing  and  sweetening  the  intercourse  of  home 
and  of  society.  In  business  of  every  kind,  fixed 
ways  of  doing  things  not  only  give  the  minimum 
of  personal  trouble  and  vexation  to  the  individual 
man,  but  are  of  hardly  less  advantage  to  partners, 
helpers,  and  all  who  transact  business  with  him. 
In  home-life,  regular  habits  not  only  oil  the  wheels 
of  the  domestic  economy,  but  they  are  threads 
around  which  crystals  form.  They  furnish  points 
of  support  for  those  attentions  and  endearments 
which  keep  the  domestic  bond  as  close  as  it  is 
tender.  The  details  may  seem  of  small  moment 
taken  one  by  one  ;  but  could  you  gauge  the  joys 
—  slender  individually,  vast  in  their  aggregate  — 
of  a  normal  family,  with  wife  and  children,  you 
would  find  an  immense  difference  between  that 
of  a  man  whose  goings  and  comings  can  be  fore- 
known, prepared  for  and  waited  for,  whose  move- 
ments are  time-marks  on  the  dial-plate  of  daily 
life,  and  that  of  the  man,  in  all  essentials  of  con- 
duct blameless,  yet  erratic  and  incalculable,  so 
that  the  order  of  the  household  must  be  either 
perpetually  deranged  on  his  account,  or  maintained 


150       PRINCIPLES,   RULES,    AND  HABITS. 

independently  of  him.  The  same  difference  may- 
be traced,  in  a  marked  though  varying  degree,  in 
the  entire  circle  of  one's  relations  in  business  and 
in  society.  Prime  value  is,  of  course,  to  be  at- 
tached to  a  pure  and  upright  life  ;  but  in  addition 
to  this,  fixed  habits  have  their  highly  important 
office  in  conciliating  intimate  regard  and  unre- 
served confidence. 

There  are  yet  other  habits  of  thought,  speech, 
and  action,  which  have  in  themselves  a  transcen- 
dent moral  value.  We  speak  of  forming  good 
habits ;  and  the  very  word  u  forming "  implies 
some  kind  and  degree  of  labor,  of  mind-work, 
heart-work,  or  both,  in  their  formation,  —  work 
which  is  not  required  for  their  continuance.  It  is 
the  nature  of  habit,  that,  when  started,  it  will  run 
of  itself.  Whatever  good  habits  we  have,  once 
cost  us  toil,  self-inspection,  vigilance,  and,  it  may 
be,  repeated  failures :  they  now  seem  spontaneous, 
instinctive.  Thus,  I  have  known  persons  who  by 
intensely  hard  labor  with  and  upon  themselves 
have  reversed  unfortunate  tendencies  in  speech 
and  manner,  and,  undoubtedly,  in  thought  and 
feeling  also,  and  substituted  for  them  habits  of 
gentleness,  amenity,  and  grace,  indicative  of  care- 
ful Christian  self-discipline.  The  toil  and  strain 
have  now  ceased.  What  was  once  arduous  task- 
work has  become  a  second  nature.     Now,  suppose 


HABIT,   A   LABOR-SAVER.  151 

that,  in  order  to  maintain  this  better  frame  and 
habit  of  soul,  lifelong  endeavor  and  unceasing  toil 
were  necessary,  I  know  not  what  time  or  capacity 
there  could  be  for  further  improvement.  If  only 
continuous  effort  could  sustain  good  habits,  their 
number  would  be  very  small ;  the  men  who  had  not 
glaring  moral  deficiencies  would  be  very  few,  ahd 
the  foremost  saints  would  have  but  a  piebald  and 
meagre  type  of  goodness.  Habit  is  of  unspeakable 
worth  in  a  way  which  I  can  best  illustrate  by  what 
takes  place  in  manufacture.  The  value  of  a  labor- 
saving  machine  consists  in  releasing  for  other  in- 
dustries a  large  portion  of  the  strength  and  skill 
thus  superseded,  so  that  more  work  is  done,  and 
the  variety  and  fulness  of  the  stock  of  objects  of 
desire  and  use  are  largely  increased.  Habit  per- 
forms an  analogous  office  for  the  spiritual  nature. 
It  is  a  labor-saver.  When  a  good  habit  is  formed, 
a  certain  amount  of  moral  and  spiritual  force  em- 
ployed in  forming  it  is  released  for  other  service. 
It  may  be,  and  probably  will  be,  employed  in  form- 
ing additional  good  habits ;  and  if  the  whole  out- 
ward life  be  at  length  conformed  to  the  soul's 
ideal,  and  the  habitual  course  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing be  brought  up  to  the  same  standard,  there  are 
the  more  delicate  traits  of  high  spirituality,  of  an 
interior  life  shaped  after  the  divine  pattern,  which 
may  be  the   object   of  ever  more   successful   en- 


152       PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

deavor.  These  more  recondite  graces  of  character 
multiply  to  the  thought,  become  more  distinct  to 
the  view,  and  present  a  stronger  attraction,  as  one 
grows  in  goodness,  so  that  while  this  mortal  life 
lasts,  and  how  much  longer  we  cannot  say,  habit 
may  succeed  habit,  the  series  beginning  as  ever- 
brightening  steps  on  the  earthly  lifeway,  and  grad- 
ually rising  into  rungs  of  the  ladder  from  earth  to 
heaven. 

When  we  speak  of  habits,  we  generally  refer  to 
speech  and  conduct.  Still  more  important  are 
those  of  thought  and  feeling  from  which  the 
speech  and  the  life  flow ;  and  these,  as  I  said  in  a 
previous  lecture,  are  best  formed  in  early  life,  and 
are  really  formed  in  the  process  of  castle-building 
(so  called),  which  is  often  regarded  as  merely  per- 
mitting idle  day-dreams  to  flit  through  the  mind, 
but  in  which  the  boy  or  girl  may  build  "  a  house 
not  made  with  hands,"  which  shall  be  "  eternal  in 
the  heavens,"  or  which  the  first  breath  of  heaven 
would  dissolve  into  empty  air.  Accordingly  as 
these  castles  are  built  low,  mean,  and  shabby,  or  of 
fair  yet  earthly  proportions,  or  roofless,  with  spires 
and  turrets  pointing  heavenward,  the  life-habits 
will  be  sordid  and  vicious,  decently  selfish,  or 
thoroughly  noble  and  generous. 

Society  has  habits,  or  customs  as  we  more  com- 
monly call   them ;    every  age,  every    community, 


PERSISTENCY  OF  CUSTOMS.  153 

every  class  and  circle  of  society,  has  its  own  cus- 
toms ;  and  it  may  be  well  for  us  to  consider  their 
ethical  relations  and  character.  Like  laws,  they 
can  never  represent  either  the  lowest  or  the  high- 
est tone  of  opinion  and  feeling.  They  may  be 
fairly  assumed  to  be  on  a  level  with  the  conscience 
and  culture  of  the  majority.  They  cannot  be  in 
any  respect  below  this  standard  ;  for  in  that  case 
the  dissenters  would  be  too  numerous  for  the  cus- 
tom to  retain  the  general  respect.  They  cannot 
be  much  above  this  standard  ;  if  they  were  so, 
conformity  would  be  hypocrisy  on  the  part  of  the 
greater  number,  and  hypocrisy  is  too  unnatural 
ever  to  become  the  habit  of  an  age  or  a  commu- 
nity. Moreover,  were  it  general,  it  would  lose  its 
efficacy,  and  would  no  longer  deceive. 

Customs  have  a  strong  vis  inertice.  They  are 
changed  only  very  gradually  and  with  great  diffi- 
culty ;  or  if  under  some  strong  excitement  a  sud- 
den change  is  made,  it  is  very  soon  unmade,  and 
the  old  customs  are  re-instated.  Thus,  reformers 
sometimes  think  their  work  done,  and  live  to  see 
it  undone,  for  the  simple  reason  that  no  permanent 
reform  can  be  made  in  the  customs  of  a  community, 
unless  it  be  wrought  in  the  sincere  conviction  and 
profound  feeling  of  the  people,  —  a  process  like 
the  working  of  leaven  in  a  mass  of  dough,  and  in 
which  it  is  sometimes  forgotten,  but  needs  to  be 


154       PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

borne  in  mind,  that  the  leaven  works  by  being 
kneaded  into  the  dough,  not  by  being  thrown  at 
it.  The  reformers  who  fail,  and  those  who  suc- 
ceed, may  be  equally  worthy  of  success.  The  dif- 
ference is,  that  the  latter  are  the  product,  while 
the  exponents,  of  advancing  public  sentiment; 
the  former,  a  sporadic  growth,  out  of  season,  be- 
fore their  time. 

With  reference  to  the  temperance  reform,  I  have 
witnessed,  as  I  think,  both  permanent  success  and 
temporary  failure.  In  my  early  boyhood  the 
drinking  habits  of  New  England  were  such  as 
would  seem  fabulous  now.  The  old  Puritans 
drank  largely  and  solemnly.  It  was  their  only 
recreation.  All  others  they  renounced  and  de- 
nounced. They,  however,  limited  their  potations 
to  what  was  reputed  to  be  temperance,  giving 
to  the  word,  indeed,  a  somewhat  latitudinarian 
meaning.  The  disorders  coincident  with,  and 
consequent  upon,  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  to- 
gether with  the  exposures  and  temptations  of  camp 
life,  intensified  the  sober  drinking  of  the  fathers 
into  habits  which  kept  a  large  portion  of  the  peo- 
ple on  the  brink  of  inebriation,  with  many  con- 
stantly falling  over  the  brink,  till^it  length  the 
most  solemn  occasions  —  funerals,  ordinations,  even 
meetings  of  the  clergy  —  presented  scenes  of  shame- 
ful excess.     I  remember  in  my  boyhood   having 


THE   TEMPERANCE  REFORM.  155 

been  taken  to  a  town-meeting,  at  which  a  man  of 
high  standing  and  character  moved  the  abolition 
of  the  daily  ration  of  strong  drink  for  men  who 
worked  on  the  highways,  and  substituting  its  value 
in  money,  and  he  was  almost  hooted  down,  a  man  of 
similar  position  in  the  community  anathematizing 
him  for  attempting  to  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor. 
The  habit  of  social  drinking  on  all  occasions  when 
men  came  together  was  so  universal,  that  at  the 
earlier  meetings  of  the  Massachusetts  Society  for 
the  Suppression  of  Intemperance,  the  oldest  tem- 
perance society  in  the  world,  there  was  the  usual 
array  of  decanters,  and  the  members  prepared 
themselves  for  their  discussion,  as  the  mediaeval 
knights  prepared  for  the  conflict  in  their  tourna- 
ments, by  friendly  conference  with  the  enemy  with 
whom  they  were  going  to  fight.  But  one  of  their 
number,  at  whose  house  a  meeting  was  to  be  held, 
after  spreading  in  array  brandy,  rum,  and  gin,  at 
the  last  moment,  moved  by  a  sudden  inspiration, 
took  them  from  the  sideboard,  put  them  under 
lock  and  ke}r,  and  reported  to  his  associates  what 
he  had  done.  They  at  once  started  on  a  vigorous 
warfare  against  the  established  drinking-customs 
of  (so  called)  respectable  society,  having  previ- 
ously directed  their  attention  chiefly  to  the  more 
vulgar  forms  of  excess.  They  found  their  world 
ready  for  them ;  large  numbers  of  right-thinking 


156       PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

and  right-feeling  people  had  in  their  hearts  been 
long  rebelling  against  customs  with  which  they 
dared  not  break ;  and  in  a  marvellously  short  pe- 
riod the  habitual  use  of  distilled  liquors  in  good 
society,  and  on  various  occasions  on  which  it  had 
been  regarded  as  essential,  was  discontinued,  and 
observances  that  had  been  held  as  almost  sacred, 
became  utterly  disreputable. 

That  those  who  have  attempted  to  banish  fer- 
mented liquors  from  general  use,  have  not  had 
permanent  success,  is  not  their  fault.  They  have 
been  earnest,  faithful,  self-sacrificing.  Their  in- 
tense zeal  and  untiring  effort  have  had  paroxysms 
of  seeming  success,  which  have  been  of  more  value 
than  they  think;  for  in  each  of  them  individual 
salvations  have  been  multiplied:  and  they  are  all 
the  while  doing  their  part  in  educating  society  up 
to  their  standard.  But  they  have  failed  of  general 
and  lasting  success,  simplj-  because  public  senti- 
ment is  slow  of  change.  It  had  changed  when 
the  old  Massachusetts  Society  began  its  work,  and 
its  members  were  but  the  mouthpieces  of  a  waiting 
public.  It  has  not  yet  undergone  the  farther 
change,  of  which  the  more  zealous  reformers  of  the 
present  day  are  the  forerunners,  not  the  exponents. 

The  slowness  of  change,  or,  in  other  words, 
the  permanence  of  customs  and  habits,  is  regarded 
with  impatience  by  reformers,  but  wrongly.     The 


THE  PROGRESS   OF  SOCIETY.  157 

tyranny  of  custom  has  its  good  side,  its  beneficent 
influence.  It  excludes  a  large  amount  of  evil,  and 
effectually  stops  out  evils  that  have  once  been 
outgrown  and  repudiated.  Those  who  are  the 
most  pertinaciously  attached  to  existing  customs, 
are  the  most  ready  to  condemn  and  to  keep  at  a 
distance  all  that  made  the  past  worse  than  the 
present.  Custom,  while  it  gives  a  longer  life  than 
might  be  desired  to  the  evil  which  it  tolerates,  is 
equally  inexorable  in  adhering  to  the  good  which 
it  recognizes,  and  thus  fastens  down  and  secures 
against  retrogression  the  successive  moral  gains 
and  advances  of  society.  On  one  of  those  almost 
vertical  railwa}Ts  on  which  tourists  now  ascend 
Mount  Washington  or  Vesuvius,  there  are  mor- 
tises that  stop  the  cogs  of  the  wheels,  so  that  there 
can  be  no  retrograde  movement ;  and  the  rapidity 
of  the  ascent  is  of  small  importance  compared 
with  the  means  employed  to  prevent  an  abnormal 
descent.  Customs  are  mortises  in  the  upward 
movements  of  human  society,  and  it  is  to  the  last 
degree  undesirable  that  the  wheels  should  revolve 
so  fast  as  for  the  cogs  to  miss  the  mortises. 

In  taking  a  view  of  society  at  remote  intervals, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  mark  stages  of  progress 
from  which  there  has  been  no  retrogression.  Thus, 
in  the  Hebrew  history,  if  you  will  inspect  the 
record  even  of  court-manners  in  the  times  of  Saul 


158       PRINCIPLES,    RULES,   AND   HABITS. 

and  of  David,  and  compare  them  with  Jewish  life 
as  it  was  in  Judaea  at  the  Christian  era,  you  will 
see  that  the  world  was  growing  through  those 
centuries.  You  cannot  conceive  of  a  Peter,  or 
a  John,  or  a  Paul,  having  been  prepared  to  be  a 
potential  minister  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  in  the 
"  school  of  the  prophets,"  or  minstrels,  which  Saul, 
in  his  frenzy,  stripped  off  his  clothes  to  join.  The 
type  of  society  which  we  see  among  the  fishermen 
of  Galilee  had  in  it  a  refinement,  a  susceptibility 
of  culture,  a  capacity  of  moral  discernment  and 
impression,  of  which  we  discover  no  traces  in  the 
best  men  under  the  Hebrew  monarchy.  The  Jew- 
ish civilization,  in  its  moral  tone,  in  the  thorough- 
ness with  which  it  permeated  the  whole  body  of 
the  people,  in  its  tendency  to  level  upward,  repre- 
sented the  highest  social  condition  that  man  had 
attained  at  the  Christian  era.  It  did  not  really 
perish,  but  became  so  decentralized  and  dispersed 
that  we  can  catch  but  rare  glimpses  of  its  survi- 
val and  continued  advancement ;  while  it  left  the 
Roman  civilization  morally  at  an  immeasurable 
distance  beneath  it,  as  the  starting-point  for  post- 
Christian  history.  Of  this  we  are  the  inheritors, 
or  rather  the  continuators ;  for  it  never  died.  Its 
metropolis  was  removed  to  Constantinople ;  but  it 
lingered  in  Rome,  moulded  the  conquerors  of  the 
Western    empire,   transfused    itself   through   the 


LINES   OF  PROGRESS.  159 

European  nations,  and  has  had  a  continuous 
existence  till  now. 

But  with  what  immense  improvements!  The 
rudeness  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  none  of  the 
nameless  vices  of  which  in  Rome's  palmy  days 
no  one  was  ashamed ;  and  its  coarse  festivities 
lacked  revolting  features  which  almost  sicken  the 
reader  in  some  classic  pages.  The  moral  habits 
of  the  Stuart  dynasty  would  have  been  disgraceful 
under  the  Georges ;  and  at  the  present  day,  Eng- 
land looks  back  upon  the  Georgian  period  as  scan- 
dalously loose  and  low  in  its  morality.  We  see 
and  feel  the  defects  in  our  own  ethical  standard ; 
but  when  we  look  at  the  somewhat  remote  past, 
we  may  well  take  to  ourselves  the  scriptural  ex- 
hortation, u  Say  not  thou,  What  is  the  cause  that 
the  former  days  were  better  than  these  ?  for  thou 
dost  not  inquire  wisely  concerning  this." 

The  progress  that  has  been  made  has  been  in 
the  direction  of  each  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  moral  action.  As  regards  all  that  apper- 
tains to  purity,  in  the  broad  sense  of  the  word, 
there  has  been  a  gain  that  can  be  measured  only 
by  a  series  of  comparisons,  whose  coarser  terms 
would  be  any  thing  but  savory.  As  to  growth, 
all  the  habits  of  society  favor  intellectual  culture 
to  a  degree  beyond  the  most  sanguine  expecta- 
tions of  those  who  gave  the  earlier  impulses  to 


1G0       PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

such  progress.  As  regards  spiritual  culture,  too, 
I  cannot  but  think  that  the  habits  of  society, 
while  less  favorable  to  mere  religiousness  as  di- 
vorced from  duty,  are  better  adapted  to  cherish 
a  piety  active  both  Godvvard  and  manward.  As 
to  love,  in  all  forms  of  philanthropic  interest  and 
action,  and  especially  in  the  mutual  sympathies 
which  transcend  dividing  lines  of  class,  race,  and 
color,  the  advancement  of  society  has  been  sure 
and  rapid ;  and  that,  all  over  the  civilized  world. 

We  now  ask,  in  conclusion,  What  are  the  ethical 
relations  of  the  individual  to  social  customs  and 
habits  ?  How  far  is  he  bound  to  conformity  ? 
When  and  how  is  he  to  assume  a  protestant  atti- 
tude ?  In  the  first  place,  as  regards  customs  in  all 
respects  blameless,  conformity  is  more  than  per- 
missible. It  is  obligatory.  Social  customs  have  a 
unifying  power  in  society.  They  render  inter- 
course harmonious  and  easy.  They  are  a  con- 
ventional sign-language  by  which  a  great  deal  of 
kind  feeling  is  interchanged.  He  who  sees  fit  to 
transgress  them,  and  to  lead  an  eccentric  life,  not 
only  loses  much  that  society  might  give  him,  but 
withholds  much  which  he  might  give.  If  he  has 
any  social  work  to  do,  he  does  it  at  a  disadvan- 
tage. If  he  has  a  reform  to  advocate,  he  forfeits 
the  leverage  which  would  be  given  him  by  rela- 
tions, at  other  points,  of  unrestrained  fellowship. 


CUSTOMS.  161 

His  word  has  less  weight ;  his  example,  less  influ- 
ence. The  narrative  of  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ 
would  lead  us  to  believe  that  he  conformed  gen- 
ially with  the  customs  of  the  society  in  which  he 
was  for  the  time  being.  Apart  from  the  interest 
that  was  felt  in  his  work  as  a  teacher  and  a  re- 
former, we  see  numerous  tokens  of  strong  personal 
attachment  to  him,  which  could  hardly  have  been 
manifested  had  he  not  borne  his  full  and  friendly 
part  in  the  common  life  around  him. 

There  are,  in  the  next  place,  customs  perfectly 
right  in  themselves ;  if  wrong,  wrong  only  in  de- 
gree. Here  he  who  feels  the  wrong  is,  of  course, 
bound  to  avoid  all  blameworthy  excess  for  himself 
and  for  those  immediately  under  his  control ;  but 
if  lie  wants  to  extend  his  influence  to  a  larger 
circle,  he  must  be  careful  not  to  swing  to  the 
opposite  extreme.  I  know  little  of  the  matters 
involved  in  the  (so  called)  dress-reform.  It  re- 
lates to  mysteries  which  the  uninitiated  dare  not 
penetrate.  But  I  do  know  that  the  cause  has 
been  thwarted  by  the  hideous  guise  in  which  its 
advocates  have  attired  themselves.  It  is  a  matter 
in  which  I  believe  that  sacred  interests,  even  the 
solvency  and  honesty  of  many  heads  of  families 
of  moderate  means,  yet  in  what  calls  itself  society, 
are  involved ;  but  those  who  would  use  their  ex- 
ample and  influence  in  behalf  of  the  economy  so 


162       PRINCIPLES,   RULES,   AND  HABITS. 

sorely  needed,  should  do  so,  as  I  know  that  they 
can,  in  careful  harmony  with  decency,  comeliness, 
and  good  taste.  In  like  manner,  as  to  whatever  is 
excessive  in  social  customs,  he  who  feels  the  ex- 
cess as  a  wrong  that  ought  to  be  remedied,  should 
be  especially  careful  not  to  offend,  in  his  personal 
reform,  the  aesthetic  feeling  of  the  community. 
In  this  way,  if  he  can  do  no  good,  he  at  least 
does  no  harm.  But  the  aesthetic  element  enters 
so  largely  —  and  by  good  right  —  into  social  cus- 
toms, that  no  essential  reform  can  be  made  in 
defiance  of  it. 

As  to  customs  wrong  in  themselves,  or  wrong 
in  our  honest  and  deliberate  opinion,  protest,  open, 
strong,  and  earnest,  is  our  duty  even  more  than 
our  right.  No  matter  how  hopeless  the  case  may 
seem.  No  matter  if,  so  far  as  we  know,  we  stand 
alone.  This  we  can  never  know.  The  utterance 
that  we  make,  others  may  be  on  the  point  of  mak- 
ing, and  waiting  only  till  they  know  that  they 
will  meet  with  sympathy.  At  any  rate,  numbers, 
majorities,  are  formed  one  by  one.  Moreover, 
the  question  of  numbers  can  affect  no  one  person's 
duty  or  responsibility.  I  am  answerable  for  my 
own  position  and  action  if  I  am  alone:  I  have 
neither  less  nor  more  responsibility  if  I  am  one  of 
thousands.  There  is  an  old  parable,  that  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  earth  once  agreed  to  raise  a 


INDIVIDUAL   RESPONSIBILITY.  163 

simultaneous  shout,  that  the  people  in  the  moon 
might  hear ;  and  when  the  moment  arrived,  every 
man,  woman,  and  child,  except  a  man  in  China 
who  was  stone-deaf,  stood  silent,  with  suspended 
breath,  in  a  listening  attitude.  Just  so,  on  matters 
of  intensest  moral  interest  and  moment,  men  and 
women  who  see  and  feel  the  right,  and  are  ready 
to  join  in  the  outcry  if  it  be  raised,  wait  to  hear 
when  they  ought  to  speak.  Were  it  only  the  habit 
of  society  for  one  to  utter  on  matters  of  moral 
right  and  obligation  what  he  believes  and  feels, 
all  other  reformation  would  have  free  and  speedy 
course  toward  a  happy  issue. 


LECTURE  VII. 

ETHICS   OF   THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

There  are  various  theories  with  regard  to  the 
date  and  the  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  ;  but 
into  these  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  enter,  nor  yet 
into  any  questions  as  to  what  is  technically  called 
inspiration.  The  divine  inspiration,  as  the  source 
of  whatever  in  ethics  or  theology  so  far  tran- 
scends its  time  as  by  no  possibility  to  have  been  a 
natural  development,  if  in  any  respect  an  error,  is 
so  because  it  is  held  in  too  narrow  a  sense,  and 
applied  only  to  the  great  teachers  in  the  line  of 
descent  from  Abraham.  The  Christian  Fathers, 
especially  those  of  the  Alexandrian  school,  ap- 
plied it  equally  to  Socrates,  Plato,  and  all  the 
chief  luminaries  of  the  heathen  world,  whom  they 
regarded  as  holding  by  divine  ordination  the  same 
office  with  reference  to  the  Gentile  races  that  was 
held  by  Moses  and  the  prophets  in  the  Hebrew 
commonwealth.  This  I  believe.  At  the  same 
time,  I  have  not  found  adequate  reason  to  deny 
the  great  antiquity  of  large  portions  of  the  Penta- 

164 


THE  DECALOGUE.  165 

teuch,  or  the  general  authenticity  of  the  Old- 
Testament  history,  though  it  is  not  without  the 
legendary  additions,  the  confusion  of  names,  dates, 
and  numbers,  and  the  duplication  of  narratives 
with  variance  of  details,  which  occur  in  all  ancient 
history,  and  are,  indeed,  indelible  time-marks  of 
an  authorship  in  the  remote  past. 

It  is  generally  admitted,  even  by  those  who  as- 
sign the  latest  date  to  the  compilation  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch, that  the  Decalogue,  in  substance,  was 
first  promulgated  at  the  time  of  the  exodus,  and 
was  thenceforward  regarded  b}r  the  Hebrews  as 
their  fundamental  moral  law.  Now,  when  we  con- 
sider what  the  people  were  at  that  time,  a  horde 
of  fugitive  slaves,  with  so  little  of  religious  knowl- 
edge, faith,  and  culture,  that  the  second  man  in 
their  company  made  an  image  of  a  calf  for  their 
worship,  and  the  whole  people  danced  round  it  in 
a  vulgar  paroxysm  of  fanatical  idolatry, — a  peo- 
ple, too,  ready  for  centuries  to  adopt  the  gods  of 
whatever  tribe  happened  to  have  the  ascendency 
over  them,  we  cannot  suppose  that  this  sublime 
ethical  compend  was  developed  from  the  heart  of 
such  a  nation,  or  even  of  their  leader,  who  had 
not  been  guiltless  of  deeds  of  violence  which  this 
code  condemns.  I  cannot  read  those  ten  com- 
mandments, and  assign  to  them  their  due  place  in 
the  early  history  of  the  Hebrews,  without  giving 


166      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

my  full  assent  to  the  prefatory  statement  in  the 
narrative,  "  God  spake  all  these  words,  and  said." 
To  my  mind  they  are  equally  his  words,  whether 
he  spake  them  in  the  thunders  of  Sinai,  or  through 
the  lips  of  the  great  law-giver,  or,  if  the  latter, 
whether  with  his  distinct  consciousness  of  special 
inspiration,  or  through  that  unconscious  influence 
by  which  in  all  time  the  men  whom  God  chooses 
are  inspired  and  empowered  for  their  life-work. 

Among  all  compends  of  moral  duty,  the  Deca- 
logue holds  by  far  the  pre-eminence  ;  and  of  all 
ethical  systems,  that  which  it  embodies  yields 
place  only  to  the  Christian.  Yet  in  saying  this,  I 
ought  not  to  forget  that  the  Mosaic  Decalogue 
stands  not  alone.  Brahmanism,  too,  has  its  deca- 
logue, covering  almost  the  same  ground  with  the 
Hebrew,  but  less  completely.  Buddhism  abounds 
in  precepts  enjoining  purity  of  life  and  the  passive 
virtues.  Confucius  left  maxims  full  of  practical 
wisdom.  In  fine,  all  the  sacred  books  of  the 
Eastern  World  have  an  ethical  value,  which  we 
Christians,  so  far  from  underrating  it,  ought  to 
recognize  with  gratitude  as  showing  us  that  God 
has  never  "left  himself  without  witness." 

But  the  Decalogue  is  complete  in  this  sense,  — 
that  its  prohibitions  comprehend  all  the  great  sins 
and  vices  that  prey  upon  human  society,  that  en- 
tire obedience   to   it   would  imply  a   thoroughly 


THE  FIRST  COMMANDMENT.  167 

blameless  and  exemplary  life,  and  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  add  an  eleventh  commandment  on 
the  same  plane  with  the  ten.  The  eleventh  com- 
mandment, if  we  had  it,  would  either  belong  to 
that  interior  life  beneath  whose  surface  the  Deca- 
logue does  not  pretend  to  go,  or  else  it  would  ap- 
pertain to  details  of  conduct  under  some  one  of 
the  great  heads  which  give  title  to  the  ten  com- 
mandments. The  precepts  are  in  form  precisely 
adapted  to  a  people  still  rude  in  culture,  yet  there 
is  not  one  of  them  that  can  ever  grow  obsolete  in 
this  world ;  and  they  are  all  so  perfectly  in  accord- 
ance with  the  needs  of  every  grade  of  society, 
that  we  can  fully  sympathize  with  the  sanction 
given  to  them  by  the  Author  of  our  religion,  and 
can  feel  that  they  are  not  inaptly  used  in  Chris- 
tian worship,  and  are  by  no  means  out  of  place  in 
an  ante-communion  service.  At  the  same  time, 
there  underlie  some  of  these  precepts,  in  their 
present,  which  may  or  may  not  be  their  original, 
form,  certain  great  principles,  which  anticipated 
extra-scriptural  philosophy  by  many  centuries,  and 
into  the  recognition  of  which  the  civilized  world 
has  hardly  yet  grown.  Let  us  consider  these  pre- 
cepts one  by  one. 

The  first  commandment  prescribes  as  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  all  dut}T,  the  recognition  of 
the  one  Supreme  God,  Law-giver,  Witness,  Judge. 


1G8      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

"•  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  (or  god)  before 
me."  This  commandment  does  not  imply,  as  it  is 
sometimes  said  to  imply,  the  existence  of  other 
gods,  who  are  not  to  be  preferred  to,  or  placed  be- 
fore, Jehovah.  The  Hebrew  words  mean,  »*  in  my 
face,"  in  my  presence,  that  is,  in  defiance  of  me. 

The  second  commandment  was  necessary  to  in- 
sure the  keeping  of  the  first.  If  primeval  man 
was  a  monotheist,  he  undoubtedly  ceased  to  be 
so  by  making  visible  symbols  or  remembrancers 
of  his  God,  and  first  worshipping  him  in  them, 
afterward  them  instead  of  him.  At  any  rate,  as 
the  Hebrews  were  surrounded  by  idol-worshippers, 
there  was  imminent  danger  of  their  beguiling 
themselves  into  like  worship  by  persuading  them- 
selves that  they  were  but  worshipping  their  own 
God  in  a  new  way  and  in  a  visible  form.  We  see 
what  the  process  has  been  in  the  Romish  Church. 
Images  and  pictures  were  at  first,  and  in  the 
minds  of  intelligent  persons  are  now,  mere  helps 
to  worship ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they 
are  really  worshipped  by  the  more  ignorant. 

This  commandment  is  sanctioned  by  a  truth 
which  has  been  regarded  as  a  scientific  discovery 
of  our  own  time,  —  "Visiting  the  iniquity  of  the 
fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth 
generation,  and  showing  mercy  unto  thousands 
[that  is,  of  generations]  of  them  that  love  me,  and 


THE  LAW  OF  HEREDITY.  169 

keep  my  commandments."  The  Christian  Church 
long  merged  this  truth  in  the  dogma  of  original 
sin  as  a  taint  transmitted  from  Adam's  first  trans- 
gression to  all  his  posterity;  and  in  the  protest 
against  this  absurd  and  cruel  dogma,  the  more 
liberal  theologians  were  wont  with  equal  unreason 
to  scout  the  notion  of  hereditary  depravity.  But 
we  have  now  learned  that  man  acts  not  for  him- 
self alone,  that  his  sins  die  not  with  him,  that  the 
baleful  heritage  passes  on,  gradually  expending 
itself,  indeed,  yet  inevitably  showing  its  virus,  if 
not  in  actual  guilt,  in  evil  proclivity,  down  to  the 
third  or  fourth  generation  ;  while,  as  I  said  in  a 
former  lecture,  a  God-loving  and  commandment- 
keeping  race  holds  its  own,  sometimes  through  a 
long  series  of  generations,  till  the  entail  is  docked 
by  a  fatal  intermarriage,  thus  rendering  it  possible, 
that,  if  men  so  chose,  the  heritage  might  be  passed 
on  to  the  end  of  time,  and,  moreover,  giving  us 
hope  in  the  law  of  heredity  as  the  ultimate  means 
of  purifying  and  beatifying  the  whole  human  fam- 
ily. At  the  same  time,  we  have  here  the  strongest 
possible  dissuasive  against  the  indulgence  of  evil 
appetite  and  passion,  in  the  assurance  that  the 
parent  thus  brings  an  inevitable  blight  and  an 
intense  probability  of  shame  and  moral  ruin  on 
the  very  beings  that  are  dear  to  him  as  his  own 
soul.     The   law  of  heredity  seems   to   me   ineffa- 


170      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

bly  beneficent  in  its  designed  and  ultimate  work- 
ing. But,  be  it  beneficent  or  not,  it  is  not  a  little 
remarkable,  on  any  theory  save  that  of  divine  in- 
spiration, that  it  should  have  been  so  clearly  an- 
nounced in  the  world's  rude  infancy,  and  then  lost 
from  sight  and  thought  for  so  many  subsequent 
ages. 

The  third  commandment  still  further  guards  the 
worship  of  God  by  prohibiting  the  irreverent  use 
of  his  name,  which,  when  it  does  not  flow  from 
impiety,  cannot  fail  to  generate  impiety. 

Then  comes  the  fourth  commandment,  that  of 
the  sabbath,  which  has  been  too  generally  regarded 
as  a  ritual  observance,  Hebrew  in  its  origin  and 
purpose,  binding  on  Christians  only  as  a  matter  of 
expediency,  and  fastening  upon  the  entire  Deca- 
logue the  stamp  of  Judaism.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  believe  that  this  commandment  is  here,  because, 
like  each  of  the  others,  it  prescribes  a  duty  of  uni- 
versal validity  and  obligation,  or  I  would  rather 
say,  puts  into  the  form  of  a  precept  an  inevitable 
law  of  nature.  If  the  narrative  in  the  Book  of 
Exodus  be  authentic,  the  sabbath  was  not  a  new 
institution  when  the  Decalogue  was  given.  We 
have  traces  of  it  in  other  ancient  nations,  and 
probably  references  to  it  in  Homer  and  Hesiocl. 
The  law  of  the  sabbath  appertains  to  natural  re- 
ligion, or,  rather,  to  the  physiology  of  man  at  least, 


USES  OF  THE  SABBATH.  171 

if  of  nothing  else  in  the  universe.  Man  cannot 
bear  a  perpetual  strain  of  continuous  labor,  whether 
of  body  or  of  mind.  The  maximum  of  work  is 
accomplished,  only  if  there  be  a  periodical  season 
for  rest,  or  for  change  of  work.  Wherever  there 
has  been  no  regular  sabbatical  rest,  its  purpose 
has  been  served,  though  imperfectly,  by  Saturnalia 
feast-days  and  public  games.  The  beasts  that  aid 
man  in  his  work  are  equally  unable  to  bear  the 
strain  of  labor  without  intermission.  Nor  are  there 
wanting  instances  in  which  even  inanimate  indus- 
trial agencies  have  seemed  to  manifest  a  like  neces- 
sity.  Physiologically,  the  one  day's  rest  in  seven 
has  shown  itself  to  be,  for  man,  neither  too  much 
nor  too  little ;  and  it  is  of  no  small  significance, 
that  when,  in  the  climax  of  anti-religion  in  the 
French  Revolution,  one  day  of  rest  in  ten  was  sub- 
stituted for  one  in  seven,  the  peasantry  in  some  of 
the  rural  districts  resumed  the  old  order  of  the 
week,  saying  that  their  cattle  could  not  bear  nine 
days'  continuous  labor.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
multiplication  of  holy  days,  which  have  every- 
where become  holidays,  has  been  prejudicial  to  the 
habit  and  the  results  of  industry,  and  is  one  of 
the  most  obvious  causes  of  the  lack  of  diligence 
and  thrift  in  some  of  the  Roman-Catholic  coun- 
tries of  Continental  Europe. 

For  worship  and  religious  culture,  the  sabbath 


172      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

is  equally  essential.  Public  worship  would  be  im- 
possible, were  there  not  set  seasons  for  it ;  and  for 
individuals,  the  rush  of  business  and  the  pressure 
of  care,  if  never  arrested  and  relieved,  would  pre- 
clude continuous  thought  on  the  highest  themes  of 
thought,  and  whatever  of  devout  feeling  there 
might  be  would  be  frittered  away  by  the  perpet- 
ual friction  of  uncongenial  scenes  and  occupations. 
The  weekly  rest  is  also  of  untold  service  to  home- 
life,  especially  in  our  busy  age,  when  the  members 
of  a  family  have,  each  with  all,  and  all  with  each, 
only  the  most  hurried  intercourse  at  uncertain 
intervals.  The  interposing  of  a  frequent  day  of 
rest  tends,  too,  to  allay  the  vehemence  of  political 
excitement  and  party  strife,  and  to  remind  those 
who  feel  very  far  apart  of  the  higher  obligations 
and  interests  that  overlap  and  overtop  their  dif- 
ferences. 

Nor  let  this  commandment  be  complicated  in 
thought  with  the  austerities  and  the  penal  sanc- 
tions of  the  Hebrew  sabbath.  These  form  no  part 
of  the  Decalogue.  They  are  entirely  Jewish.  If 
they  ever  had  any  worth,  they  lost  their  value 
many  centuries  ago ;  and  as  adopted  by  the  English 
and  Scotch  Puritans,  they  have  only  served  to 
bring  sabbatical  observance  into  discredit,  and  to 
produce  the  re-action  toward  the  opposite  extreme 
which  we  witness  now.     The  Decalogue  prescribes 


THE  COSMOGONY  OF  GENESIS.  173 

for  the  sabbath,  rest  and  worship,  —  of  course,  by 
any  reasonable  interpretation,  rest  from  needless 
labor,  and  such  exercises  of  private  and  public 
worship  as  may  edify  without  wearying  ;  for  we  do 
not  obey  this  commandment  if  we  let  even  devo- 
tion deprive  the  day  of  its  restful  uses.  The  com- 
mandment may  be  observed  in  its  true  sense,  yet  so 
as  to  make  the  day  the  happiest  as  well  as  the  best 
of  the  week,  while  its  rest  shall  lighten  the  toil, 
and  its  devotion  hallow  the  mirth,  of  the  six  fol- 
lowing days.  Let  me  be  distinctly  understood. 
I  do  not  regard  the  law  of  the  sabbath  as  any 
more  a  Jewish  law  than  the  laws  against  theft  and 
murder,  but  as  a  law  of  nature  so  far  as  man's 
needs  are  concerned,  and  its  observance  as  the 
dictate  of  natural  piety.  I  hardly  need  to  say 
that  the  controversy  about  the  seventh  and  the 
first  day  of  the  week  is  utterly  idle  and  inane ;  and 
}'et  we  have  a  pretty  numerous  sect  of  Seventh- 
Day  Baptists,  who  do  not  think  it  so.  The  worth 
of  the  commandment  is  in  the  proportion  of  time 
that  it  assigns  for  rest  and  worship ;  and  I  cannot 
but  think  that  those  who  are  compelled  by  profes- 
sional duty  to  work  for  others,  and  can  do  but 
little  for  themselves,  on  Sunday,  may  do  well  to 
take  Monday  for  a  sabbath  day  in  both  senses  and 
for  both  uses. 

If  you  will  pardon  a  slight  digression,  I  am  in- 


174      ETHICS  OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

clined  to  believe  that  we  owe  to  the  established 
order  of  the  week,  the  mould  in  which  the  narra- 
tive of  the  creation  in  Genesis  is  cast.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  the  author  of  that  sublime  epic  (for 
such  it  really  is)  had  any  more  intention  of  writ- 
ing literal  history  than  we  have  of  belief  that  we 
are  reading  it.  His  purpose  was  a  religious  one. 
He  wanted  to  exclude  the  possibilities  of  false 
worship,  by  enumerating  as  the  works  of  God  the 
whole  range  of  the  objects  that  were  worshipped 
by  surrounding  nations.  With  this  design  he  cast 
the  drama  of  creation  into  six  acts,  with  the  divine 
sabbath  at  the  close,  as  an  aid  to  the  memory  and 
the  devout  thought  of  his  readers,  when  meditat- 
ing, as  the  commandment  bade  them,  on  the  glory 
of  God  in  the  creation.  Very  probably  the  form 
of  the  commandment  in  Exodus,  differing  from 
that  in  Deuteronomy,  may  be  due  to  the  author 
of  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis. 

The  fifth  commandment  is  of  special  interest 
for  the  reason  annexed  to  it,  "  That  thy  days  may 
be  long  in  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth 
thee."  This  is  evidently  not  a  promise  of  long 
life  to  the  dutiful  child.  The  commandments  are 
addressed  to  the  nation  collectively.  "  Hear,  O 
Israel,"  are  the  prefatory  words.  "  In  the  land 
which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee,"  was  certainly 
not  addressed  to  the  individual  child ;  for  in  what 


FILIAL  REVERENCE.  175 

other  land  could  he  expect  a  long  or  a  short  life  ? 
It  was  the  nation  whose  permanent  abode  in  the 
land  was  to  be  contingent  on  the  exercise  of  filial 
piety.  It  was  time  that  they  ceased  to  dwell  in 
it,  when  even  their  most  religious  men  had  reached 
the  point  of  making  a  fictitious  dedication  of  their 
property  to  the  temple-service  in  order  to  absolve 
themselves  from  the  obligation  of  supporting  their 
aged  parents.  Many  centuries  after  the  promul- 
gation of  the  Decalogue,  Aristotle  based  his  sys- 
tem of  polity  on  the  family  as  the  norm  of  the 
state,  as  the  sole  nursery  of  civic  virtue,  and  as 
the  little  commonwealth  on  which  the  well-being 
of  the  nation  must  be  wholly  dependent.  This 
doctrine  of  his  has  been  regarded  in  modern  times 
with  unbounded  admiration,  as  a  marvellous  dis- 
covery for  so  early  an  age.  How  much  more  sur- 
prising is  it,  that,  in  the  dim  dawn  of  civilization, 
from  the  heart  of  this  semi-barbarous  people,  un- 
less indeed  "  God  spake  all  these  words,"  there 
should  have  come  this  maxim  of  the  profoundest 
wisdom !  It  must  be  ever  true,  that  what  the 
families  of  a  nation  are,  the  state  will  be.  The 
family  must  be  the  nursery  of  public  virtue,  and 
wise  family  discipline  alone  can  give  the  state 
good  citizens.  The  decline  of  domestic  order,  6~f 
parental  authority,  of  filial  obedience,  must  of 
necessity  train  those  who  issue  from  their  native 


176      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

homes  to  form  homes  of  their  own,  to  be  factious, 
turbulent,  reckless  citizens;  and  the  state  in  whose 
families  parents  obey  their  children,  and  the  elder 
serve  the  younger,  must  be  given  over  to  dema- 
gogism,  anarchy,  or  despotism,  and,  not  improbably, 
to  all  three  in  succession. 

Next  comes  the  law  against  murder,  essential, 
of  course,  in  every  state,  and  requiring  no  special 
comment. 

Nor  need  we  pause  on  the  essential  law  for  the 
preservation  of  chastity,  —  a  law  the  violation  of 
which  among  the  Hebrews  was  not  only  liable  to 
the  severest  punishment,  but  was  regarded  all 
along  the  Hebrew  history  with  detestation,  while 
in  other  ancient  nations,  the  early  Romans  alone 
excepted,  very  slight  account  was  made  of  sius 
against  chastity. 

We  have  next  the  law  against  theft,  which  suffi- 
ciently explains  and  justifies  itself. 

The  ninth  commandment,  condemning  false  tes- 
timony, though  in  form  limited  to  legal  transac- 
tions, in  its  spirit  applies,  of  course,  to  all  that 
one  can  say  of  his  neighbor. 

The  tenth  commandment  on  its  face  relates  not 
to  outward  conduct,  but  to  the  movements  of  the 
soul  that  may  issue  in  sin,  —  "Thou  shalt  not 
covet,"  which,  if  obeyed,  would  supersede  "  Thou 
shalt   not   steal."     Deep   into   the   heart   as   this 


MORALITY  OF  THE  HEBREWS.  177 

commandment  seems  to  reach,  I  am  inclined  to 
think,  that,  like  the  rest  of  the  code,  it  applied 
primarily  to  conduct.  Stealing  must  have  been 
very  easy,  especially  the  stealing  of  cattle ;  for 
there  were  probably  neither  enclosures,  nor  brands 
of  ownership.  As  for  the  neighbor's  wife,  too, 
certainly  while  they  lived  in  tents,  and  hardly  less 
when  they  began  to  rear  their  first  rude,  dwellings, 
there  could  have  been  little  of  the  privacy  and 
defence  for  female  virtue  which  a  civilized  home 
affords.  Both  these  kinds  of  vice  referred  to  in 
the  commandment  were  facilitated  by  the  un- 
settled condition  of  the  people  and  the  time ;  and 
he  who  meant  to  be  honest  and  chaste,  with  such 
opportunities  for  sinning  as  he  could  not  but  have, 
needed  to  keep  his  heart  with  all  diligence,  and  to 
abstain  from  coveting  what,  if  coveted,  he  could 
so  easily  obtain  or  attain. 

Such  was  the  fundamental  moral  law  of  the 
Hebrew  people,  and  we  have  reason  to  believe  that 
it  insured  a  higher  standard  of  practical  morality 
than  we  can  trace  in  the  history  of  any  other 
ancient  nation.  At  the  Christian  era,  corrupting 
influences  had  entered  largel}T  into  Jerusalem  and 
Judaea  proper.  The  reign  of  the  Herods  was  as 
depraving  as  it  was  tyrannical  and  cruel.  The 
court  of  the  Roman  procurator  was  not  a  school 
of  good  morals.     The  Pharisees  furnished  exposi- 


178      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

tors  of  the  law,  who  were  more  skilful  in  showing 
how  it  might  be  evaded  than  solicitous  to  incul- 
cate its  due  observance.  But  in  Galilee,  where 
these  malign  influences  were  weakened  by  remote- 
ness, and  where  Pharisaism  never  had  its  strong 
hold  till  it  was  driven  from  Jerusalem  and  puri- 
fied by  its  expulsion,  we  have  reason  to  believe 
that  the  people  retained  no  little  of  the  real  right- 
eousness of  their  law.  They  were  despised  in 
aristocratic  circles,  not  for  moral  delinquency  or 
deficiency,  but  because  Galilee,  until  it  became 
the  cradle  of  Christianity,  produced  few  or  no 
eminent  men. 

But  we  have  not  done  with  Hebrew  ethics. 
The  poor-laws  of  the  Hebrews  transcend  those  of 
all  other  nations  in  humanity,  and  in  wise  econ- 
omy no  less ;  for  they  are  as  well  adapted  to  pre- 
clude as  to  relieve  want :  and  there  is,  in  the  whole 
of  Hebrew  history,  even  to  the  present  day,  after 
so  many  centuries  of  denationalization  and  disper- 
sion, no  token  of  the  prevalence  of  abject  pov- 
erty, while  the  spirit  of  this  humane  legislation 
is  still  surviving  and  efficient  among  the  Jews 
throughout  the  world.  Of  course,  it  is  impossible 
to  determine  the  precise  date  of  these  laws  in 
their  present  form,  unless  we  can  fix  beyond  dis- 
pute the  date  of  the  several  portions  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch.    But  if,  in  the  form  in  which  we  have 


THE  HEBREW  POOR-LAWS.  179 

them  now,  they  were  reduced  to  writing  in  Heze- 
kiah's,  or  Josiah's,  or  Ezra's,  time,  they  were  al- 
ready parts  of  the  law  of  the  land,  and  must  have 
been  of  earlier  origin.  Moreover,  there  is  much 
in  their  phraseology  which  indicates  with  cer- 
tainty a  very  early  date,  such  as  references  to 
the  Egyptian  bondage,  to  a  condition  of  things  be- 
longing to  a  country  recently  settled,  and  to  the 
government  by  kings  as  not  yet  begun. 

I  know  of  no  other  laws  which  are  of  special 
interest  for  their  language  alone  ;  but  these  blend 
with  the  precision  of  statutes  the  tenderness  and 
sympathy  which  are  worth  immeasurably  more  to 
the  poor  than  the  most  liberal  almsgiving  where 
the  heart  goes  not  with  the  hand.  Let  me  cite  a 
few  specimens.  "  When  thou  cuttest  down  thine 
harvest  in  thy  field,  and  hast  forgot  a  sheaf  in  the 
field,  thou  shalt  not  go  again  to  fetch  it.  .  .  . 
When  thou  beatest  thine  olive  tree,  thou  shalt  not 
go  over  the  boughs  again.  .  .  .  When  thou  gath- 
erest  the  grapes  of  thy  vineyard,  thou  shalt  not 
glean  it  afterward  :  it  shall  be  for  the  stranger,  for 
the  fatherless,  and  for  the  widow.  And  thou  shalt 
remember  that  thou  wast  a  bondman  in  the  land 
of  Egypt."  "  If  thy  brother  be  waxen  poor,  and 
fallen  in  decay  with  thee;  then  thou  shalt  relieve 
him  :  }-ea,  though  he  be  a  stranger,  or  a  sojourner. 
.  .  .  Take  thou  no  usury  of  him,  or  increase/'     "If 


180      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

thou  at  all  take  thy  neighbor's  raiment  [that  is, 
his  tunic  or  outside  garment,  used  as  a  covering 
by  night]  to  pledge,"  "thou  shalt  deliver  him  the 
pledge  again  when  the  sun  goeth  down,  that  he 
may  sleep  in  his  own  raiment,  and  bless  thee." 
"  Thou  shalt  not  .  .  .  take  a  widow's  raiment  to 
pledge."  "  No  man  shall  take  the  upper  or  the 
nether  millstone  to  pledge  [that  is,  of  the  domes- 
tic mill  to  grind  the  corn  for  daily  use]  ;  for  he 
taketh  a  man's  life  to  pledge."  "Thou  shalt  not 
oppress  an  hired  servant  that  is  poor  and  needy, 
whether  he  be  of  thy  brethren,  or  of  thy  strangers 
that  are  in  thy  land  within  thy  gates :  at  his  day 
thou  shalt  give  him  his  hire,  neither  shall  the  sun 
go  down  upon  it,  .  .  .  lest  he  cry  against  thee 
unto  the  Lord,  and  it  be  sin  unto  thee."  "  If  a 
stranger  sojourn  with  thee  in  your  land,  ye  shall 
not  vex  him.  But  the  stranger  that  dwelleth  with 
you  shall  be  unto  you  as  one  born  among  you,  and 
thou  shalt  love  him  as  thyself ;  for  ye  were  stran- 
gers in  the  land  of  Egypt." 

In  addition  to,  these  humane  provisions,  there 
was  a  law  preventing  the  permanent  alienation  of 
farms  and  family  homesteads.  Every  fiftieth  year 
there  was  a  general  release  of  mortgaged  property, 
except  of  houses  in  towns.  This  law  served  the 
double  purpose  of  diminishing  the  capacity  of  in- 
curring debts,  and  saving  the  owner  or  his  family 


HUMANITY  OF  THE  HEBREW  LAW.       181 

from  losing  hold  on  an  inherited  estate.  Of  course, 
the  amount  that  one  could  borrow  on  the  security 
of  his  farm  depended  on  the  number  of  years  for 
which  the  mortgage  could  run.  This  law  pre- 
vented also  the  growing  up  of  large  estates  in 
land,  secured  the  continuance  of  the  greater  part 
of  the  farm-land  in  the  ownership  of  small  propri- 
etors, and  thus  tended  to  check  pauperism.  Then, 
too,  if  a  man  or  woman  incurred  servitude  for 
debt,  or  voluntarily  on  account  of  poverty,  the 
time  of  service  could  last  only  six  years ;  and  it 
was  enacted,  "  When  thou  sendest  him  out  from 
thee,  thou  shalt  not  let  him  go  away  empty.  Thou 
shalt  furnish  him  liberally  out  of  thy  flock,  and 
out  of  thy  floor,  and  out  of  thy  wine-press.  Of 
that  wherewith  the  Lord  thy  God  hath  blessed 
thee,  thou  shalt  give  unto  him."  If  a  servant  thus 
released  chose  to  remain  in  service  for  love  of  his 
master's  family,  it  was  permitted  as  a  privilege. 

I  have  not  done  this  subject  justice.  I  never 
open  my  Bible  in  Exodus,  Leviticus,  or  Deuteron- 
omy, without  alighting  upon  some  token  of  the 
benignant  spirit  which  pervades  these  else  dry 
records.  All  along,  alternating  with  the  obsolete 
details  of  rite  and  sacrifice,  are  these  sentiments 
glowing  with  the  richest  inspiration  of  Him  whose 
tender  mercies  are  over  all  His  children.  The 
precepts  of  Christ,  indeed,   prescribe  even   more 


182      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

than  those  of  the  Hebrew  law ;  but  if,  copying 
from  the  fathers  of  Connecticut  Avho  voted  to 
govern  themselves  by  the  laws  of  Moses  till  they 
could  make  better,  Christians  would  adopt  the 
poor-laws  of  Leviticus  till  they  can  fully  drink  in 
the  spirit  of  Christ,  we  should  have  a  far  better  and 
happier  world  than  we  are  likely  to  see  till  the 
dawn  of  the  millennium. 

The  Hebrews  had  slaves,  as  all  nations  of  the 
Old  World  had.  They  were  chiefly  captives  of 
war;  and  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  utiliz- 
ing of  the  members  of  a  conquered  tribe  or  race 
marks  a  great  stage  in  moral  progress,  the  original 
mode  of  disposing  of  them  having  been  indiscrim- 
inate slaughter.  The  Levitical  law  contains  vari- 
ous precepts  of  mercy  to  the  slave.  The  master 
who  killed  his  slave  incurred  the  punishment  of 
death.  For  a  severe  injury  not  mortal,  the  offend- 
ing master  was  compelled  to  let  his  slave  go  free. 
The  fugitive-slave  law  of  the  Hebrews,  as  com- 
pared with  that  which  cost  our  country  its  mil- 
lions of  precious  lives,  throws  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  back  into  comparative  barbarism. 
"  Thou  shalt  not  deliver  unto  his  master  the  ser- 
vant which  is  escaped  from  his  master  unto  thee  : 
he  shall  dwell  with  thee,  even  among  you,  in  that 
place  which  he  shall  choose  in  one  of  thy  gates, 
where  it  liketh  him  best :  thou  shalt  not  oppress 


SLAVER Y  AMONG   THE  HEBREWS.        183 

him."  That  escape  from  slavery  was  very  rare,, 
we  may  infer  from  its  being  mentioned,  after  this 
law,  only  twice  in  the  Old  Testament,  once  as 
having  actually  occurred,  and  in  yet  another  in- 
stance, when  David  and  his  followers  of  the  free 
lance  are  taunted  as  being  runaway  slaves.  The 
condition  of  the  slaves  was  by  no  means  one  of 
hardship.  They  were  employed  in  confidential 
relations  and  offices,  were  sometimes  made  the 
heirs  of  their  masters,  and  sometimes  married  in 
the  family  to  which  they  belonged.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  the  Hebrew  law  did  not  create 
slavery,  but  found  it  already  existing  and  incor- 
porated with  the  whole  life  of  the  age,  so  that 
when  the  Hebrews  ceased  to  be  slaves,  it  was  in- 
evitable that  they  should  have  slaves.  In  all 
probability,  too,  slavery  was  a  protection  and  a 
benefit  to  its  subjects.  It  was,  therefore,  to  be 
regulated,  not  abolished.  But  nothing  could  have 
shown  more  ignorance  or  wrongheadedness  than 
the  attempt  to  buttress  by  scriptural  sanction  and 
Hebrew  example  an  institution  like  our  negro 
slavery,  which  had  not  in  it  a  single  element  of 
protection  or  relief,  except  when  the  master  was 
better  than  the  system,  in  defence  of  which  the 
humane  master  who  wanted  to  escape  ostracism 
or  worse  was  compelled  to  hide  his  hand  in  show- 
ing mercy.     In  the  later  period  of  the  national 


184      ETHICS  OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

history,  we  hear  so  little  of  slaves  as  to  make  it 
probable  that  the  institution,  unabolished,  had 
dwindled  and  decayed;  though  undoubtedly  the 
Roman  officials,  after  Palestine  came  under  the  im- 
perial sway,  had  families  of  slaves  there,  as  else- 
where. 

As  regards  war,  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  the 
destruction  of  the  Canaanites  and  in  other  horri- 
ble barbarities  on  record,  we  have  atrocities  unsur- 
passed, but  not  unequalled,  in  profane  history. 
But  we  are  apt  to  forget  that,  certainly  till  the 
time  of  Solomon,  the  standard  of  civilization 
among  the  Hebrews  was  very  low.  The  glimpses 
that  we  have  of  David's  time,  and  of  the  manners 
and  customs  of  the  royal  family  and  of  the  chief 
people  in  the  kingdom,  show  not  many  degrees 
above  the  rudest  savage  state.  But  the  law  was 
more  humane  than  the  people.  The  legislation 
recorded  in  the  Pentateuch  furnishes  the  earliest 
instances  in  which  any  attempt  was  made  to  miti- 
gate the  horrors  of  war.  It  is  there  enacted,  that, 
before  laying  siege  to  a  city,  the  assailants  shall 
offer  terms  of  peace,  and  if  they  be  refused,  and 
the  city  be  taken,  that  the  women  and  children 
shall  be  spared.  There  is  also  one  provision, 
which  modern  civilization  has  not  yet  recognized, 
—  the  prohibition  to  destroy  fruit-trees,  even  to  be 
employed  in  a  siege.    "  Only  the  trees  which  thou 


MAURI  AGE-LA  WS.  185 

knowest  that  they  be  not  trees  for  meat,  thou  shalt 
destroy  and  cut  them  down." 

I  am  much  impressed  with  the  mercy  to  beasts 
in  the  Hebrew  code.  The  ox  that  treads  the 
grain  to  separate  it  from  the  husk  must  not  be 
muzzled,  but  must  be  suffered  to  take  beforehand 
his  share  of  the  food  that  he  is  preparing  for  his 
owner.  The  mother-bird  is  not  to  be  taken  with 
her  eggs  or  her  young  brood.  4;  Thou  shalt  not 
seethe  a  kid  in  his  mother's  milk."  "  Thou  shalt 
not  see  thy  brother's  ox  or  his  ass  fall  down  by  the 
way,  and  hide  thyself  from  them."  These  are  only 
specimens  of  a  tenderly  humane  spirit  towards  be- 
ings of  a  lower  order  that  recurs  repeatedly  in  the 
Pentateuch.  It  was  so  far  in  advance  of  the  time, 
that  ages  afterward,  even  St.  Paul  could  not  ap- 
preciate it ;  for  he  asks  doubtingly  with  regard  to 
one  of  these  laws,  "  Doth  God  care  for  oxen?  " 

Another  subject  which  claims  emphatic  atten- 
tion is  the  marriage-laws  of  the  Pentateuch.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  the  Hebrew  history 
abuts  upon  that  period  in  the  infancy  of  the  East- 
ern nations  when  the  marriage  bond  was  so  loosely 
held  that  kindred  was  reckoned  only  on  the 
mother's  side,  paternity  being  always  a  matter 
of  question.  In  Egypt,  the  earliest  of  civilized 
countries,  the  marriage  of  brothers  and  sisters  was 
not  deemed   unfit  for  many  centuries  afterward ; 


186      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW   SCRIPTURES. 

and  such  marriages  were  contracted  by  some  of 
the  Ptolemys  in  Egypt's  most  palmy  days.  Simi- 
lar marriages  were  not  deemed  scandalous  in  the 
mythical  history  of  Greece,  which  is  true  to  the 
conceptions,  and  therefore,  probably,  to  the  per- 
mitted practice  of  primitive  times.  Even  when 
the  intermarriage  of  children  of  the  same  mother 
came  to  be  unlawful,  children  of  the  same  father, 
but  different  mothers,  might  intermarry  without 
discredit.  Abraham  married  his  half-sister ;  and  in 
one  of  the  unsavory  narratives  of  David's  family, 
it  is  intimated  that  he  would  readily  consent  to 
the  marriage  of  one  of  his  sons  to  his  half-sister. 
This  story  might  seem  to  give  reason  for  supposing 
that  some  of  the  most  important  of  the  marriage- 
laws  were  of  a  date  subsequent  to  the  time  of 
the  early  kings  ;  and  yet  in  those  days  the  king 
and  his  family  would  have  deemed  themselves 
above  law,  and  competent  to  revive  obsolete  tradi- 
tions and  practices. 

Leaving  the  time-question  aside,  the  prohibi- 
tion of  marriage  within  certain  carefully  denned 
degrees  of  kindred,  a  list  which  purists  of  our  own 
day  would  enlarge  only  by  adding  first  cousins, 
has  nothing  that  can  be  compared  with  it  in  all 
pre-Christian  legislation  ;  and  the  Romish  Church 
has  done  the  world  incalculable  service  by  adher- 
ing in  this  respect  —  with  a  tenacity  which  lias 


POLYGAMY.  187 

been  so  seldom  bribed  as  to  make  the  few  instances 
marked  events  in  history  —  to  the  Levitical  law  as 
of  sacred  authority  and  indissoluble  obligation.  It 
is  impossible  to  over-estimate  the  degree  in  which 
this  code  has  contributed  to  the  chastity  and  purity 
of  family  relations,  whose  intimacy  might  often 
lead  to  temptation  but  for  the  ban  on  undue  famil- 
iarity which  has  remained  unlifted  since  the  He- 
brew law  had  birth.  I  am  inclined  to  believe, 
however,  that  in  one  respect  the  Church  has  mis- 
interpreted the  Pentateuch.  I  do  not  think  that 
the  marrying  of  a  deceased  wife's  sister  is  forbid- 
den or  even  named  in  the  Hebrew  law.  What  is 
forbidden  is  the  marrying  of  a  second  sister  while 
the  first  is  still  living.  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
marrying  of  two  or  more  sisters  could  have  been 
prohibited  in  a  code  which  requires  a  brother  to 
marry  his  elder  brother's  childless  widow,  —  a  pro- 
vision the  design  of  which,  no  doubt,  was  to  keep 
property  from  going  out  of  a  family. 

Polygamy,  which  was  universal  among  the  East- 
ern nations,  is  not  forbidden  in  the  Hebrew  law ; 
but  the  only  two  recognitions  of  it  are  probibi- 
bitions,  namely,  that  to  which  I  just  now  referred, 
and  the  injunction  on  the  king  when  there  shall 
be  one,  that  he  shall  not  "multiply  wives  unto 
himself  that  his  heart  turn  not  away,"  which,  if 
it  was  really  given  before  their  time,  David  and 


188      ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

Solomon  ignored  to  their  shame  and  bane.  The 
compiler  of  Genesis,  whoever  he  may  have  been, 
manifestly  held  polygamy  in  the  utmost  disesteem 
and  abhorrence,  and  it  was,  I  think,  one  of  his 
special  aims  to  throw  discredit  upon  it ;  for  he 
gives  several  instances  of  it,  from  Lamech  on- 
ward ;  and  there  is  not  one  of  these  narratives  in 
which  he  does  not  ascribe  dissension,  calamity, 
crime,  murder,  to  polygamy  as  a  cause.  Polyg- 
amy gradually  faded  out  of  practice  among  the 
Hebrews:  but  few  instances  of  it  are  on  record 
after  the  Babylonish  captivity,  and  conspicuous 
among  these  is  the  case  of  Herod  the  Great,  who 
had  nine  wives,  but  who  owned  no  law,  whether 
of  man  or  of  God. 

Precisely  what  the  Hebrew  law  of  divorce  was, 
no  man  knows.  It  depends  on  the  actual  mean- 
ing of  the  word  in  our  version  translated  "  un- 
cleanness,"  which,  in  my  opinion,  denotes  some 
grave  moral  cause  of  offence.  This,  among  the 
later  rabbis,  was  the  opinion  of  the  stricter  school, 
that  of  Shammai ;  while  those  of  Hillel's  school 
maintained  that  it  included  any  cause  of  dissatis- 
faction, however  trivial,  even  a  mere  whim.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  the  law  interposed  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  divorce.  The  husband  was  obliged  to 
give  the  wife  a  "bill  of  divorcement,"  and  in  the 
days  when  the  art  of  writing  was  by  no  means  in 


USUBY.  189 

common  use,  a  man  would  have  to  go  for  this  to 
the  priest  or  Levite,  —  that  is,  would  have  to  state 
his  case  to  a  person  in  authority,  who  might  act  as 
judge,  and  refuse  to  furnish  the  requisite  docu- 
ment. It  seems  to  me  probable  that  the  law  in 
its  meaning  and  purpose  excluded  hasty,  wanton 
divorce,  without  grave  cause,  and  that  the  lax 
interpretation  of  it  came  only  with  the  decline  of 
morals. 

There  is  one  article  of  the  Hebrew  code  which 
would  hardly  demand  comment,  had  not  Ruskin 
recently  attempted  to  elevate  it  from  a  special 
restriction  into  a  universal  law ;  namely,  the  prohi- 
bition of  interest  ou  mone}r,  which  the  Jews  have 
generally  interpreted  as  applying  only  to  loans  to 
their  own  brethren,  and  have  indemnified  them- 
selves by  imposing,  when  they  could,  all  the  heav- 
ier rates  of  interest  on  Gentiles.  The  law  was 
probably  designed  to  affect  only  such  loans  of 
mutual  accommodation  as  might  be  made  between 
neighbor  and  neighbor.  It  was  enacted,  undoubt- 
edly, at  a  time  when  agriculture  was  the  chief  oc- 
cupation, and  there  was  no  extensive  commerce, 
foreign  or  domestic.  It  may  have  been  even  in- 
tended by  the  law  to  prevent  the  people  from  the 
enlarged  and  corrupting  intercourse  which  com- 
merce would  imply  or  bring.  But  with  the  growth 
of  means   of   communication,  and   the   increased 


190     ETHICS   OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES. 

demand  for  commodities  other  than  the  products 
of  one's  own  farm  or  vineyard,  commerce  was 
inevitable,  credits  and  loans  became  necessary, 
and  money,  if  retained  or  borrowed,  could  not  but 
receive,  directly  or  by  some  legal  fiction,  the 
market-value  for  its  use,  nor  could  it  obtain  more. 
The  worth  of  its  use  must  always  obey  the  law 
that  regulates  the  relations  of  supply  and  demand, 
and  any  thing  that  is  required  or  paid  beyond  is 
in  the  nature  of  insurance  for  an  extra-hazardous 
risk  of  non-payment. 

In  this  connection  I  ought  to  speak  of  the  stress 
laid  in  the  Hebrew  law  on  strict  and  literal  hon- 
esty in  dealing.  "  Ye  shall  do  no  unrighteousness 
in  meteyard,  in  weight,  or  in  measure.  Just  bal- 
ances, just  weights,  a  just  ephah,  and  a  just  hin, 
shall  ye  have." 

I  might,  had  I  time,  adduce  still  other  features 
of  the  ethics  of  the  Hebrew  law  that  would  illus- 
trate its  pre-eminent  wisdom.  I  wish  that  some 
careful  hand  would  select  from  the  Pentateuch  all 
that  is  ethical,  and  publish  it  under  its  several 
leading,  heads.  It  would  awaken  surprise  and 
profound  admiration.  All  this  is  now  so  inter- 
spersed among,  and  hidden  by,  ritual  directions, 
which  have  lost  their  interest  for  our  time,  that 
of  lovers  of  the  Old  Testament  in  general,  few 
know,  for  instance,  what  a  rich  vein  of  pure  and 


MORAL   CHARACTER   OF  THE  HEBREWS.      191 

high  morality  crops  out  in  almost  every  chapter  of 
Leviticus. 

The  Hebrews,  indeed,  never  lived  up  to  the 
standard  of  their  law,  nor  approached  it,  unless  for 
a  brief  season  under  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  and  then 
again  under  the  rule  of  the  Maccabees.  But  as 
compared  with  other  pre-Christian  nations,  they 
were,  at  the  worst,  as  a  light  shining  in  an  else 
very  dark  world.  Christianity  could  have  its  birth 
and  early  nurture  among  them,  though  with  scant 
reception  and  stinted  hospitality.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether,  at  the  Christian  era,  the  whole 
world  beside  could  have  given  to  the  infant  Church 
a  John,  a  Peter,  a  James,  a  Paul,  or  have  furnished 
a  soil  in  which  the  seed  of  the  divine  word  could 
have  started  into  life. 


LECTURE  VIII. 

CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

It  is  often  said,  in  depreciation  of  Christian 
morality,  that  it  has  nothing  of  its  own,  nothing 
new,  —  that  the  sages  of  the  East,  the  Hebrew 
scriptures,  the  earlier  rabbis  cited  in  the  Talmud, 
the  Greek  philosophers,  Cicero  in  Rome,  had  antici- 
pated every  precept  of  the  gospel.  This  is  nearly 
or  quite  true;  but  what  of  it?  Suppose  that  the 
contrary  were  true.  Would  it  not  present  a  strong 
a  priori  case  against  Christian  ethics?  Can  we 
conceive  that  God  would  have  left  the  world  for 
so  many  thousands  of  years  utterly  unenlightened 
as  to  right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil  ?  We  have 
seen  that  the  Right  is  the  fitting,  —  that  which  is 
conformed  to  the  nature  of  things.  From  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  even  without  special  illumina- 
tion from  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  yet  I  cannot 
believe  to  have  been  wanting,  man  with  his  growth 
of  knowledge  and  his  progress  toward  civilization, 
must  have  discovered  very  many  fitnesses,  and 
shaped   them  into   moral  rules.     Were  Christian 

192 


PERFECTNESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  MORALS.      193 

morality  wholly  new,  it  must  have  been  spurious 
and  non-divine. 

What  we  claim  for  Christian  ethics  is  not  origi- 
nality, but  perfection.  According  to  the  Mosaic 
cosmogony,  and  equally  in  accordance  with  the 
nebular  hypothesis,  light  existed  before  the  sun ; 
but  none  the  less  glorious  was  the  orb  which  col- 
lected the  wandering  fires,  and  was  thenceforth 
the  centre  and  source  of  a  radiance  clear,  in- 
tense, and  penetrating,  instead  of  that  which  had 
brooded  dimly  and  flashed  fitfully  over  weltering 
chaos.  Thus,  in  scattered  rays,  blended  with  the 
night-shadows,  had  the  antecedent  ages  seen  and 
rejoiced  in  the  glimmerings  of  those  daybeams 
which  in  full-orbed  glory  shine  from  the  Sun  of 
righteousness  into  the  hearts  and  upon  the  lives 
of  men.  A  single  flaw  vitiates  a  moral  system 
as  inevitably  as  a  small  aperture  in  the  bottom 
of  a  tank  will  make  it  useless ;  for  who  shall  say 
what  amount  or  power  of  evil  may  insinuate  itself 
through  the  avenue  left  unguarded,  through  the 
ignoring  of  the  one  omitted  virtue  or  the  sanction 
of  the  one  licensed  sin?  Almost  Christian  as  are 
large  portions  of  the  ethics  of  Plato's  "  Republic," 
the  adoption  in  full  of  his  moral  code  would  make 
his  ideal  republic  a  pandemonium.  He  sanctions 
some  of  the  worst  forms  of  licentiousness,  regards 
drunkenness  as  allowable  at  the  feasts  of  Bacchus, 


194  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

and  recommends  the  murder  in  infancy  of  feeble, 
sickly,  and  deformed  children.  Zeno,  the  founder 
of  the  Stoic  school,  and  most  of  his  followers, 
regarded  suicide  as  a  privilege,  or  even  a  duty, 
in  irremediable  adversity  or  in  hopeless  illness  or 
decline ;  and  Zeno  himself  set  the  example,  which 
was  followed  by  some  of  his  best  and  most  illus- 
trious disciples.  Cicero,  who  transcends  all  other 
pre-Christian  moralists,  lays  it  down  as  a  funda- 
mental rule,  that  one  should  do  no  harm  to  his 
neighbor,  unless  provoked  by  injury  done  to  hin> 
self.  Now,  in  the  morality  of  the  gospel  you  can 
find  no  weak  point,  no  opening  for  the  intrusion  of 
any  form  of  wrong-doing.  Nor  can  you  conceive 
of  any  condition  in  life  in  which  the  true  rule  of 
action  is  not  prescribed  by  the  precepts,  suggested 
by  the  spirit,  or  clearly  indicated  by  the  example, 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Still  more,  you  can  conceive  of 
no  higher  law  for  heaven,  or  for  any  order  of  beings 
below  the  throne  of  God.  Wherever  in  the  uni- 
verse you  could  embody  this  law  in  the  lives  of  all 
who  dwelt  there,  you  would  have  all  the  essentials 
of  heaven. 

The  perfectness  of  Christian  ethics  may  be  best 
tested  by  comparing  the  characters  nurtured  or 
transformed  under  Christian  influences  with  those 
under  the  best  antecedent  systems.  Jesus  well 
said  of  John  the  Baptist,  as  representing  the  cul- 


SOCRATES.  195 

urination  of  all  previous  moral  culture,  "  The  least 
in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he." 
There  were  among  the  Hebrews  some  magnificent 
characters,  such  as  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  the  heroes  of 
the  Asmonsean  family ;  yet  there  is  about  them  a 
hardness  of  fibre,  a  lack  of  the  gentler  elements. 
They  were  the  men  to  fight  the  battles  of  Jeho- 
vah, and  just  the  men  on  whom  the  evangelic 
graces,  if  grafted,  would  have  shown  in  their 
blossoming  and  fruitage  how  noble  a  stock  was 
blending  its  sap  with  theirs.  In  all  history,  there 
is  hardly  a  personage  for  whom  I  have  so  much 
admiration  as  for  Nehemiah ;  yet  I  do  not  think 
that  I  should  have  wanted  to  live  with  him.  But 
in  the  Hebrews  we  witness,  as  I  believe,  the  spirit- 
ual culture  by  which  the  divine  Providence  was 
preparing  a  birthplace  for  Christ  and  his  gospel. 

Outside  of  Palestine,  before  Christ,  I  do  not 
find  a  single  type  of  virtue  that  we  should  want 
to  hold  forth  as  exemplary.  Socrates  was  wise, 
and  died  bravely ;  but  even  without  going  beyond 
Plato's  or  Xenophon's  record  of  him,  there  was 
about  him  a  coarseness,  and  a  companionable,  and 
virtually  an  approving,  sympathy  with  licentious 
and  profligate  persons,  which  would  be  at  harsh 
variance  with  the  purity  and  delicacy  of  the  Chris- 
tian standard ;  and  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
his  life  was,  by  that  standard,  free  from  gross,  yet 


196  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

then  tolerated,  vice.  Cato  the  elder  was  regarded 
by  the  Romans  as  their  model  man.  Even  Cicero, 
who  was  immeasurably  better  than  Cato,  evidently 
looked  upon  him  as  the  cynosure  for  universal 
reverence  and  admiration.  I  had  occasion  not 
long  ago  to  study  Cato's  life ;  and  it  occurred  to 
me  to  take  my  New  Testament,  and  to  try  how 
the  Beatitudes  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  would 
harmonize  with  his  character.  I  found  that  there 
was  not  one  of  them  with  which  his  life  was  not 
glaringly  in  contrast,  unless  he  might  have  claimed 
the  blessing  on  those  "persecuted  for  righteous- 
ness' sake,"  on  account  of  the  more  than  forty 
lawsuits  brought  against  him  by  implacable  ene- 
mies. He  was  ferociously  upright,  bitterly  patri- 
otic, malevolently  courageous.  But  he  was  mean 
and  miserly,  horribly  cruel,  an  exacting  and  tyran- 
nical slave -master,  unrelenting  in  his  enmities, 
and  neither  severely  pure  nor  rigidly  temperate. 
Cicero  comes  nearer  the  Christian  standard  than 
any  other  pre-Christian,  whether  Greek  or  Ro- 
man :  yet,  while  I  am  among  his  warmest  ad- 
mirers, I  must  confess  that  there  are  aspects  of  his 
character  and  passages  of  his  life  which  admit  of  a 
less  favorable  construction  than  I  am  inclined  to 
give  them ;  and  if  they  belonged  to  one  on  the  list 
of  Christian  saints,  they  would  make  his  aureola  a 
penumbra. 


THE  PASSIVE   VIRTUES.  197 

After  Christ,  we  have  among  non-Christians  not 
a  few  specimens  of  genuinely  Christian  virtue  ; 
and  in  a  future  lecture  I  shall  attempt  to  trace  its 
source.  Suffice  it  now  to  say  that  there  is  a  con- 
tagion of  goodness  as  well  as  of  evil,  and  that 
when  the  light  shines  in  darkness,  and  the  dark- 
ness comprehends  it  not,  those  in  the  dark  may 
light  their  lamps  at  a  flame  that  comes  they  know 
not  whence. 

Let  us  now  consider  some  of  the  peculiar  fea- 
tures of  Christian  morality  ;  for,  however  little  of 
originality  there  may  be  in  its  details,  as  a  whole 
it  has  characteristics  of  its  own,  which  give  it  a 
just  pre-eminence  among  ethical  systems.  Jesus 
verified  in  his  teachings  the  prophetic  saying, 
"  Every  valley  shall  be  filled,  and  every  mountain 
and  hill  shall  be  brought  low."  He  reversed  the 
world's  ethical  scale,  dug  valleys  where  the  moun- 
tains stood,  reared  mountains  where  the  valleys 
were.  What  we  call  the  passive  virtues  were  be- 
fore his  time  held  in  the  lowest  esteem,  or  rather, 
in  no  esteem  at  all.  They  had  not  even  respect- 
able names.  The  Latin  humilis  denotes  grovel- 
ling on  the  ground  ;  and  its  Greek  equivalent, 
Ta7T€u/o?,  has  a  similar  derivation  and  meaning. 
In  fine,  Christianity  had  to  pick  up  its  best  words 
from  the  rubbish  and  dust-heaps  of  language,  and 
to  pass  them  through  a  baptism  of  regeneration. 


198  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

But  we  wrong  these  virtues  when  we  call  them 
passive.  In  their  highest  form  and  fullest  develop- 
ment, they  require  and  indicate  a  compact,  tem- 
pered, and  accumulated  strength  of  character  far 
beyond  that  of  the  virtues  which  make  more  show, 
even  as  the  spring  which  will  sustain  a  continuous 
pressure,  will  bend  under  an  added  weight  without 
breaking,  and  will  recoil  with  undiminished  elas- 
ticity when  the  weight  is  removed,  is  of  a  stronger 
as  well  as  of  a  finer  staple  than  the  instrument 
designed  to  strike  single  heavy  blows.  These 
silent  virtues  are  in  their  quiet  way  intensely 
active,  as  are  those  powers  of  nature  that  every 
spring  noiselessly  heave  the  winter-bound  earth- 
clods,  push  up  the  grass -blades,  throw  out  the 
leaf-buds,  and  without  voice  or  sound  renew  the 
whole  face  of  nature. 

These  virtues  are  the  most  aggressive  of  moral 
forces.  Every  great  cause  of  human  progress  and 
well-being  has  had  for  its  most  efficient  workers 
men  whose  resistance  has  been  submission  under 
meek  protest ;  and  when  force  has  seemed  to 
crown  the  work,  as  in  the  great  contest  with 
slavery,  success  has  been  made  possible  only  by 
men  who  could  not  strive  or  cry,  but  who  could 
bear  testimony  to  the  True  and  the  Right  in  loss 
and  shame,  in  bonds,  and  even  unto  death.  In- 
deed, it  is  superfluous  to  multiply  instances,  when 


HOME.  199 

the  cross,  the  symbol  of  meek  endurance,  unwear- 
ied forbearance,  and  unquenchable  love,  has  been 
the  sole  power  on  earth  that  has  never  known 
decline  or  retrogression,  has  from  the  first  hour 
pursued  its  course  conquering  and  to  conquer, 
holds  at  the  present  moment  its  supreme  yet  se- 
renest  empire  over  its  myriads  of  souls,  and  gives 
sure  presage  of  a  sovereignty  before  which  every 
knee  shall  bow,  and  every  tongue  shall  own  the 
lordship  of  Him  who  bore  it,  and  whom  it  bore. 

It  is  these  gentle  virtues  that  created  home. 
There  were  no  homes  in  the  ancient  world,  be- 
cause there  was  no  tolerance  for  these  virtues. 
The  Greek,  the  Roman,  household,  was  in  the  best 
times  a  despotism  ;  in  the  worst,  an  anarchy.  The 
wife,  the  mother,  never  had  her  equal,  honored 
place,  nor  had  the  children  the  discipline  which 
recognized  at  once  their  needs  and  their  rights, 
their  dependence  and  their  incipient  and  growing 
power  of  self-control.  Nor  yet  can  the  Germans, 
or  any  of  the  northern  or  eastern  tribes  that  over- 
ran the  Roman  empire,  have  moulded  the  Christian 
household  from  elements  indigenous  in  their  rude 
life.  To  be  sure,  their  women  had  a  certain  in- 
trepid nobleness,  and  a  fierce,  aggressive  equality 
with  the  men  of  their  tribes  ;  but  it  was  not  such 
women  that  could  become  priestesses  of  the  home- 
altar.     Home  first  came  into  being  when  the  fam- 


200  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

ily  received  the  impress  of  the  command,  "  Bear 
ye  one  another's  burdens,  and  so  fulfil  the  law  of 
Christ,"  —  when  the  domestic  circle  was  pervaded 
by  the  spirit  of  the  great  Master,  embodied  in  the 
precept,  "  Be  kindly  affectioned  one  to  another,  in 
honor  preferring  one  another." 

We  shall  find,  too,  that  these  gentler  virtues 
underlie  all  that  is  healthful  and  happy  in  the 
social  life  of  modern  civilization,  while  its  defi- 
ciencies and  faults  may  all  be  traced  to  the  imper- 
fect way  and  degree  in  which  they  are  embodied, 
practised,  and  manifested.  True  refinement  is 
made  up  wholly  of  these  qualities  of  character. 
Society  is  attractive  in  the  proportion  in  which  it 
is  pervaded  by  them.  Most  of  the  unhappiness  in 
the  intercourse  of  kindred,  neighbors,  and  friends, 
proceeds  from  their  violation.  Without  them  the 
hardier  virtues  might  minister  to  the  public  peace, 
and  to  progress  in  the  arts  of  life  ;  but  it  is  from 
these  gentler  graces  that  flow  the  little  rills  of 
content,  happiness,  and  good  cheer,  which  twine 
round  home-scenes  and  social  gatherings  and  quiet 
hours,  and,  as  they  flow  together,  swell  into  a  full, 
rich  stream  of  beatific  influences,  whose  volume 
none  can  measure  and  none  can  over-estimate. 

There  is  another  point  at  which  we  may  claim 
originality  for  Christian  ethics.  We  talk  of  the 
Christian  system   of  morals,  —  and  rightly  ;    but 


TUE  FUNDAMENTAL  RULE  OF  DUTY.       201 

where  is  the  system  ?  The  Master  seemed  to  give 
none.  His  precepts  were  dropped  by  the  way, 
without  connection  or  arrangement.  They  met 
the  case  in  hand,  and  often  seemed  to  do  no  more ; 
though  I  believe  that  we  shall  never  look  into  the 
full  meaning  of  one  of  these  miscellaneous  and 
scattered  sayings  without  seeing  that  it  involves  a 
great  law  of  life,  includes  an  entire  class  of  cases, 
and  is  of  enduring  validity  and  worth.  But  there 
is  a  system  wherever  there  is  a  great  general  law 
from  which  all  else  is  deduced,  and  to  which  all 
else  is  referred  ;  and  in  every  science  the  aim  has 
been  to  find  such  a  law.  Thus,  in  mechanics,  the 
law  of  gravitation  comprehends  the  theory  of  all 
the  mechanical  powers,  —  the  lever,  pulley,  wedge, 
and  screw;  and  all  the  complicated  theorems  which 
define  their  working  are  inferences  from  the  math- 
ematical formulas  that  measure  the  tendencies  of 
mutually  gravitating  bodies.  In  morals,  the  great 
sages  of  antiquity  had  their  characteristic  pre- 
cepts, which  their  disciples  regarded  as  fundamen- 
tal. Such  was  the  "  Know  thyself  "  of  Thales,  — 
a  maxim  of  most  momentous  significance  and 
value,  yet  not  all-embracing.  It  was  with  some 
such  expectation  that  the  lawyer  asked  Jesus, 
"  Which  is  the  great  commandment  in  the  law  ?  " 
The  answer  was  not  Christ's  own,  but,  as  the  ques- 
tion seemed  to  demand,  borrowed,  word  for  word, 


202  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

from  the  Hebrew  Scriptures ;  yet  he  rendered 
it  peculiarly  his  own  by  putting  upon  it  the  em- 
phasis which  it  had  not  before,  and  making  it  com- 
prehensive of  all  human  duty,  so  that  love  to  man 
is  but  a  corollary  from  it ;  and  with  this  corollary 
distinctly  implied,  we  have,  in  the  love  of  God  with 
all  the  heart  and  soul  and  mind,  every  thing  that 
man  is  bound  to  do  and  to  be,  —  every  tiling  of 
vital  interest  contained  in  the  Law,  or  preached  by 
the  prophets,  or  promulgated  by  him  in  whom  the 
Law  is  consummated,  and  prophecy  becomes  his- 
tory. This  law  gives  the  only  sure  directory  to 
the  cultivation  of  virtue  and  the  attainment  of 
moral  excellence.  In  defining  goodness,  it  unifies 
it.  The  several  virtues  are,  indeed,  to  be  made 
each  the  object  of  earnest  endeavor  and  faithful 
self-discipline ;  but  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that 
there  is  a  virtue  which  contains  them  all,  and 
without  which  they  can  have  no  sure  root  or 
healthy  growth.  They  are  to  be  cultivated  suc- 
cessfully only  through  that  love  of  God  of  which 
they  are  a  part,  and  from  which  the  fertilizing  in- 
fluence flows  into  them  all,  as  the  life-giving  juices 
from  the  root  flow  into  the  branches  and  tendrils 
of  the  vine. 

It  is  equally  to  Jesus  that  we  owe  the  unifying 
of  sin.  Sins  were  recognized  before  ;  sin,  first  by 
him.     The  Jewish  law  had  its  fine  or  sacrifice  for 


TIIE   UNITY  OF  SIN.  203 

every  individual  transgression,  and  the  sinner 
deemed  himself  cleansed  from  the  specific  stain 
for  which  he  had  brought  his  sin  or  trespass  offer- 
ing to  the  altar.  The  psalmists  and  the  prophets 
show  some  sense  of  the  possibility  of  a  general 
defilement  from  which  particular  sins  must  of 
necessity  proceed.  But  sin,  as  a  definite  quality, 
apart  from  sins,  and  possible  even  where  there  are 
no  conspicuous  sins,  is  an  exclusively  Christian 
idea ;  and  it  is  of  infinite  moral  importance.  Sin 
is  hydra-headed,  yet  has  but  one  heart.  You  may 
cut  off  head  after  head,  and  each  will  reproduce 
itself,  or  will  be  replaced  by  one  more  hideous. 
Its  heart  is  autonomy,  self-will,  the  ignoring  of 
the  divine  will  and  law,  the  living  without  God  in 
the  world,  —  a  condition  which,  did  it  produce  no 
evil,  is  in  itself  evil.  The  fatal  stroke  must  be 
aimed  at  the  heart;  and  when  that  is  stilled  in 
death,  what  of  life  lingers  in  the  heads  can  be 
extinguished,  though  they  may  need  to  be  sepa- 
rately dealt  with ;  for,  as  is  the  case  with  mollusks 
and  reptiles,  sin  does  not  die  at  once  in  all  its 
parts,  though  with  its  heart  they  all  be  death- 
stricken.  This  is  the  Christian  theory  of  repent- 
ance, /xcravota  in  the  Greek,  which  signifies  change 
of  mind,  the  first  word  in  the  preaching  of  Jesus, 
and  the  key-word  to  all  that  he  taught.  This  is 
the  idea  that  underlies  what  he  says  about  the 


204  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

ceremonial  washing  of  the  hands  and  of  the  out- 
side of  the  cup  and  platter,  while  from  within, 
from  the  heart,  "  proceed  those  things  that  defile 
a  man." 

Another  feature  of  Christian  morality  is  that  it 
is  prevailingly  positive.  Other  moralists  forbid 
more  than  they  command.  Prohibition  rather 
than  precept  characterizes  the  Confucian  and  the 
Brahmanistic  ethics.  This  is  pre-eminently  true 
of  Buddhism,  which  is  hardly  less  thorough  in  its 
prohibitions  than  would  be  demanded  by  the 
highest  Christian  standard,  and  would  make  its 
disciple  negatively  pure,  yet  to  a  very  limited  ex- 
tent actively  virtuous.  The  Decalogue  is  prohib- 
itory. "  Thou  shalt  not "  is  the  form  of  eight 
out  of  the  ten  commandments ;  the  stress  of  the 
fourth  rests  on  the  prohibition  to  work  on  the  sab- 
bath ;  and  the  fifth,  that  enjoining  filial  reverence, 
is  the  only  one  that  is  positive  both  in  form  and 
in  meaning.  In  this  respect  the  Law  was,  not  the 
"schoolmaster  "  (for  the  word  so  rendered  in  our 
English  Bible  denotes  the  slave  that  leads  the 
children  to  school),  but  the  servant  to  bring  men 
to  Christ,  —  to  fit  them  by  abstaining  for  doing,  by 
shunning  the  wrong  for  practising  the  right.  For 
nations  and  races,  no  less  than  for  the  individual 
man,  ceasing  to  do  evil  must  precede  learning  to 
do  well.     Jesus  does  not  abrogate  the  prohibitions 


UNDUE  STRESS   ON  PASSIVE   VIRTUES.       205 

of  the  Law,  but  he  complements  them  by  precepts 
of  active  goodness.  The  contrast  of  which  I  have 
spoken  reminds  me  of  the  Egyptian  ritual  of  the 
dead  ;  that  is,  the  formula  of  the  judgment  through 
which  the  dead  must  pass  as  they  enter  the  life 
beyond  death.  It  is  all  negative.  The  man  ar- 
raigned before  the  judges  who  are  to  determine 
his  destiny  is  made  to  say,  if  he  can  say  it  with 
truth,  "  I  have  not  done  violence,  I  have  not  de- 
frauded, I  have  not  committed  adultery,  I  have 
not  perjured  myself,"  and  so  on  through  a  long 
list  of  sins,  from  which,  if  he  can  thus  purge  him- 
self, he  is  received  into  paradise.  All  this  Jesus 
would  have  his  disciple  to  say;  but  if  he  could 
say  no  more,  he  would  not  be  his  disciple.  The 
virtues  of  the  Beatitudes  are  none  of  them  nega- 
tive ;  or  rather,  they  all  are  much  more  than 
negative.  They  are  not  filled  out  by  the  absence 
of  impurity,  of  unmercifulness,  of  arrogance,  of 
strife.  There  must  be  the  cherishing  of  pure 
thoughts,  the  showing  of  mercy,  the  meek  and 
gentle  bearing,  diligent  peace-making. 

I  am  thus  led  to  speak  of  the  Christian  ethics 
as  demanding  active  no  less  than  passive  goodness. 
There  was  in  the  primitive  days  of  the  Church  so 
much  to  be  suffered,  as  to  give  a  trend  to  the 
early  Christian  literature  in  the  direction  of 
patience,   submission,   brave    endurance ;    but    it 


206  CHRISTIAN  ETniCS. 

must  be  borne  in  mind,  that,  in  times  of  intense 
trial,  these  become  active  virtues,  demanding  the 
very  stoutest  moral  fibre,  and  evincing  an  inward 
might  adequate  to  the  most  energetic  toil.  Those 
who  had  nothing  to  do  for  their  faith  but  to  die 
for  it,  put  into  the  final  conflict  strength  that 
might  have  more  than  sufficed  for  a  long  lifetime 
of  arduous  duty.  When  the  dying  sacrifice  is  no 
longer  demanded,  its  place  can  be  taken  only  by 
the  living  sacrifice  of  mind  and  soul  and  strength 
in  the  service  of  man,  and  of  God  through  man. 
The  Christian  is  he  whose  lifework  glows  and 
grows  under  his  hand,  who  is  conscious  of  an  un- 
ceasing call  for  strenuous  activity,  who  takes  for 
his  watchword  the  great  apostle's  question,  "  Lord*, 
what  wouldst  thou  have  me  to  do  ?  " 

We  wTill  now  inquire  how  far  Christianity  con- 
tributes to  our  knowledge  of  duty,  that  is,  of  the 
fitnesses  of  things,  —  the  knowledge  which  is  not 
conscience,  but  which  conscience  needs,  and  may 
always,  use.  When  the  astronomer  wants  to  pre- 
sent a  perfectly  accurate  view  of  the  solar  system, 
he  shows  and  describes  it  as  it  would  appear  from 
the  centre  of  the  sun, — gives  what  he  calls  helio- 
centric angles  and  distances.  In  the  moral  uni- 
verse, Christianity  gives  us  heliocentric  views, — 
shows  us  things  as  God  sees  them.  We  thus  learn 
the  transcendent  worth  of  the  soul,  of  character, 


THE  SOWS   TRANSCENDENT   WORTII.       207 

of  inward  truth,  purity  and  love,  as  compared 
with  the  body  and  the  material  world.  Aside 
from  Christianity,  while  we  might  attach  a  supe- 
rior value  to  the  soul's  life,  yet  things  spiritual  and 
things  outward  would  differ  less  in  our  estimate 
than  they  do  now,  and  we  might  deem  it  fitting 
to  make  some  compromise  or  sacrifice  of  the  in- 
ward life  for  very  great  outward  gain.  But  Chris- 
tianity attaches  the  value  of  an  actual  appraisement 
by  weights  and  balances  to  the  question  which 
has  not  lost  its  significance  by  being  supplanted 
in  the  Revised  Version  of  the  New  Testament, 
"  What  is  a  man  profited  though  he  gain  the  whole 
world,  and  lose  his  own  soul?"  The  clear  reve- 
lation of  immortality  makes  an  almost  entire 
revolution  in  the  realm  under  the  special  cognizance 
of  conscience.  Not  that  there  could  be,  even  were 
we  going  to  die  as  the  brutes  die,  any  fitness  in 
vice,  or  any  unfitness  in  virtue.  Yet  if  our  life 
here  were  our  whole  life,  it  would  undoubtedly  be 
fitting  for  us  to  fill  it  as  full  as  it  could  hold  with 
sober  and  honest  pleasures,  and,  without  neglect- 
ing mind  and  character,  to  give  the  body  its  ample 
share  of  enjo}Tment.  But  if  the  body  is  to  last 
only  a  little  while,  and  the  soul  to  live  forever, 
then  there  is  a  manifest  fitness  in  our  giving 
supreme  regard  to  the  furniture  and  possessions 
of  the  soul,  to  what  it  may  carry  with  and  in  it- 


208  CHRISTIAN  ETUICS. 

self  through  the  death-passage,  and  attaching  a 
diminished  worth  to  possessions  and  endowments 
of  which  our  tenure  at  the  best  is  exceedingly 
brief  and  frail. 

Christianity  also  reveals  to  us  our  fellow-men  as 
related  to  us  by  more  intimate  ties  than  we  might 
else  recognize,  as  fellow-children  of  the  Infinite 
Father,  fellow-subjects  of  his  benign  providence, 
fellow-heirs  of  the  life  eternal.  Now,  men  of  dif- 
ferent conditions  and  races  diverge  very  widely  in 
this  earthly  life ;  and  where  no  other  life  has  been 
held  in  view,  there  has  been  little  sense  of  fitness 
in  the  relations  between  race  and  race,  or  class  and 
class.  Among  some  of  the  most  enlightened  ethi- 
cal teachers  of  the  old  time,  including  even  Soc- 
rates as  Plato  reports  him,  we  find  precepts  tanta- 
mount to  the  maxim  that  had  become  current 
among  the  Jews,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor, 
and  hate  thine  enemy."  Cut  off  from  collective 
humanity  its  common  base  and  its  common  archi- 
trave, you  leave  only  separate  groups  with  no 
more  necessary  mutual  relations  than  different 
races  of  beasts  have.  The  Caucasian  sees  no 
reason  why  he  may  not  reduce  the  Hottentot  as 
he  would  the  horse  to  bondage,  or  hunt  the  Au- 
stralian as  he  would  the  ostrich.  But  when  we 
trace  men  with  all  their  diversities,  perhaps  with 
no  common  earthly  parentage  (for  I  do  not  think 


CASUISTRY.  209 

that  even  the  biblical  narrative  implies  a  common 
human  ancestry  for  all  men),  when  we  trace  them, 
I  say,  back  to  a  common  Father  whose  image  is 
impressed  on  them  all,  and  on  to  a  common  home 
in  the  many-roomed  mansion  of  that  Father,  we 
see  the  fitnesses  of  human  brotherhood,  which 
have  been  realizing  themselves  in  emancipation,  in 
the  missionary  enterprise,  in  protective  coloniza- 
tion, and  in  the  establishment  of  mutually  benefi- 
cent international  intercourse.  In  these  ways 
Christianity  has  very  largely  increased  man's 
knowledge  of  the  fitness  of  things,  so  that  under 
its  guidance  one  need  never  be  at  a  loss  as  to 
what  is  fitting  and  right,  or  as  to  what  is  unfitting 
and  wrong. 

Christianity  also  acts  directly  upon  the  con- 
science, stimulating  it  to  activity,  to  watchful- 
ness, to  keenness.  The  divine  presence,  the  power 
of  an  undying  hope,  the  example  of  perfect  hu- 
manity in  Jesus,  the  feeling  of  intensest  interest 
in  one's  own  character,  the  fellowship  of  kindred 
minds  and  hearts,  all  prompt  one  to  the  careful 
consideration  of  the  right  and  the  wrong  in  every 
case  offered  for  his  decision,  and  thus  to  even  the 
minutest  scrutiny  of  whatever  may  bear  upon 
the  question  of  right. 

The  influence  of  Christianity  has  had  one  sin- 
gular consequence  in  the  literature  of  ethics.     It 


210  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

gave  birth  and  long  life  to  the  science  of  casuis- 
try ;  that  is,  of  special  cases  of  conscience.  At  a 
very  early  period,  Christian  writers  began  to  dis- 
cuss the  question  of  duty  in  difficult  and  doubtful 
cases,  sometimes  real,  perhaps  oftener,  imaginary. 
In  the  Middle  Ages,  among  the  schoolmen,  there 
was  little  writing  on  morals  except  in  the  depart- 
ment of  casuistry ;  and  even  as  late  as  the  seven- 
teenth century  we  have  a  large  volume  of  casuistry 
from  Baxter.  The  discussion  of  special  cases  has 
almost  ceased  now,  not,  as  I  believe,  because  men 
are  less  solicitous  to  know  their  duty,  but  because 
they  have  attained  to  a  clearer  knowledge  of  it. 
Christianity  awakened  in  the  minds  of  its  sincere 
disciples  everywhere  an  earnest  desire  to  know  the 
right,  and  the  aim  was  to  converge  the  light  of 
Christ's  teaching  and  life  on  every  separate  de- 
partment of  duty.  The  result  was  a  series  of  dis- 
coveries in  every  department,  —  the  creation  of 
luminous  patches  where  there  was  dense  darkness 
before  ;  and  now  these  patches  have  run  together, 
and  the  light  of  the  gospel  rests  full  and  clear  on 
the  whole  field  of  human  duty,  so  that  we  seldom 
need  to  ask,  What  ought  I  to  do  ?  Our  one  pres- 
ent need  —  never  so  intense  as  now  —  is  the  ready 
will  to  do  all  that  we  know. 

This  leads  me  to  say  that  there  is  still  one  form 
of  casuistry  that  most  injuriously  affects  the  Chris- 


JESUS,   MAN'S  EXEMPLAR.  211 

tian  Church.  The  question  is  virtually  asked,  and 
very  often,  "  How  little  of  duty  can  I  do,  and  yet 
remain  a  Christian?  How  far  can  I  avail  myself 
of  what  Mammon  and  Belial  have  to  give,  and 
yet  not  forfeit  my  part  in  the  benefits  at  Christ's 
bestowal?"  Those  who  thus  strive  to  make 
their  way  between  wind  and  water  often  have 
hard  cases  of  conscience,  while  they  attempt  to 
harmonize  opposite  polarities,  and  to  negative  the 
infallible  words  of  Jesus,  "  No  man  can  serve  two 
masters."  But  to  him  who  is  willing  to  serve 
only  one  master,  Christianity  seldom  or  never 
leaves  conscience  in  doubt.  While  he  who  at- 
tempts to  see  double  finds  the  light  within  him 
darkness,  the  single  eye  is  full  of  light. 

I  ought  to  add,  as  the  culminating  prerogative 
of  Christian  ethics,  that  we  have  in  Jesus  the  em- 
bodiment of  all  that  he  taught  as  to  human  duty, 
so  that  he  teaches  us  even  more  by  his  life  than 
b}r  his  words.  The  Gospel  of  Mark  gives  but  few 
of  his  discourses,  and  those  few  abridged ;  and  yet 
there  is  not  a  lesson  of  truth  or  duty  drawn  out 
at  length  by  the  other  three  evangelists,  which  we 
may  not  read  as  distinctly  and  impressively  in 
Mark's  condensed  narrative  of  Christ's  daily  walk, 
of  his  intercourse  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men,  of  the  divine  humanity  from  which  there  is 
a  perpetual  effluence  of  all  that  is  most  winning 


212  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

and  endearing,  stimulating  to  the  conscience, 
fraught  with  instruction  in  Tightness.  It  is  im- 
possible to  separate  his  ethical  teaching  from  his 
life.  Here  he  stands  alone.  There  are  great 
moral  teachers,  whose  writings  would  be  worth 
fully  as  much  as  they  are  if  they  were  anonymous. 
There  are  some,  like  Seneca,  whose  works  would 
be  of  much  greater  value  were  there  not  a  harsh 
discrepancy  between  their  writings  and  what  is 
known  or  suspected  of  their  lives.  There  are 
good  lives  which  we  contemplate  with  admiration 
and  love,  but  which  teach  us  only  what  they 
themselves  derived  from  Jesus,  and  which  differ 
from  his  life  in  that  they  reflect  the  light  kindled 
from  his  spirit  unevenly,  so  that  they  are  models 
of  some,  but  not  of  all,  virtues,  and  even  when 
such  seems  not  to  be  the  case,  that  they  have 
about  them  the  coloring  of  their  country,  time, 
and  circumstances,  —  that  they  are  not  cosmopoli- 
tan in  such  a  sense  as  to  be  equally  impressive, 
edifying,  and  instructive  to  persons  of  all  ages, 
lands,  and  conditions.  But  Jesus  is  at  once 
identified  with  and  detached  from  his  surround- 
ings, and  he  could  not  be  the  one  without  the 
other ;  for  those  traits  of  perfect  humanity  that 
were  in  him  could  have  their  full  manifestation 
only  in  the  actual  world  in  which  he  lived,  and 
yet  they  are  to  that  world  like  the  circumambient 


THE  NEED   OF  MOTIVE-POWER.  213 

air,  in  contact  with  every  being  and  substance, 
yet  never  yielding  up  its  specific  properties,  —  with 
and  in  all,  yet  its  identity  unchanged.  Though 
among  Jews,  he  is  no  more  of  a  Jew  than  if  he 
had  lived  in  Arabia.  We  never  feel  that  the  pe- 
culiarities, much  less  the  prejudices,  frailties,  and 
follies  of  his  age  and  people  cleave  to  him,  or  dim 
his  lustre  as  the  Sun  of  righteousness  for  our 
whole  race,  or  make  his  example  any  the  less  the 
cynosure  for  those  of  all  nations,  for  man  so  long 
as  he  shall  live  on  earth,  so  long  as  he  shall  live 
with  God  in  heaven, 

We  have  seen  what  Christian  morality  is.  An 
ethical  system,  however,  needs  more  than  itself, — 
more  than  principles  and  rules  of  duty.  It  fully 
as  much  needs  motive-power.  There  is  a  Chinese 
legend  that  illustrates  this  need.  The  three  great 
religious  teachers  of  the  Celestial  Empire,  from 
their  heavenly  abode  beholding  with  profound  sor- 
row the  degeneracy  of  their  people,  and  mourning 
that  their  lifework  seemed  so  entire  a  failure,  re- 
turned to  the  earth,  in  order  to  find  some  suit- 
able missionary  whom  they  could  send  forth  as  a 
reformer.  They  came  in  their  wanderings  to  an 
old  man,  sitting  as  the  guardian  of  a  fountain. 
He  talked  to  them  so  wisely  and  so  earnestly  of 
the  great  concerns  which  they  had  most  at  heart, 
that  they  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  the 


214  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

very  man  for  the  work  which  they  wished  to  ac- 
complish. But  when  they  proposed  the  mission 
to  him,  he  replied,  "  It  is  the  upper  part  of  me 
only  that  is  of  flesh  and  blood :  the  lower  part  is 
of  stone.  I  can  talk  about  virtue  and  good  works  ; 
but  I  cannot  rise  from  my  seat  to  perform  any 
righteous  act."  This  apologue  indicates  the  moral 
condition  in  which  even  a  perfect  ethical  system 
might  leave  its  disciples.  The  words  which  Ovid 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  Medea,  Video  meliora,  pro- 
boque,  deteriora  sequor,  "  I  see  and  approve  the 
better;  I  follow  the  worse,"  express  the  utter 
moral  inability  which  is  by  no  means  a  rare  state 
of  consciousness.  Christianity  supplies  the  requi- 
site enabling  power.  It  presents  in  the  divine 
providence,  benignity,  fatherhood,  every  motive 
that  can  flow  from  reverence  and  love  ;  it  appeals 
to  man  by  the  love  and  sacrifice  of  Christ,  and 
by  the  power  of  his  cross ;  it  pledges  the  aid  of 
Omnipotence  to  supplement  the  feebleness  of  those 
who  have  but  the  will  to  do  right ;  and  its  worship 
and  ordinances  are  oft-recurring  remembrancers  of 
duty,  keeping  its  own  working-force  in  constant 
activity,  and  feeding  the  strength  that  might  else 
be  wasted  and  lost.  Its  revealed  immortality  is 
a  moving  no  less  than  a  teaching  power.  It  pro- 
claims an  inevitable  retribution,  and  that  by  no 
arbitrary  decree,  but  by  the  law  of  continuity  ; 


THE  STANDARD   OF  CHARACTER.         215 

and  as  no  man  can  wish  to  outlive  what  he  most 
craves  and  enjoys,  there  is  no  need  of  any  harsh 
theology  to  make  men  seek  in  a  virtuous  life  that 
which  alone  can  have  any  heritage  beyond  the 
death-shadow.  Thus  Christianity  furnishes  power 
to  actualize  its  own  ideal,  —  to  make  men  what  it 
bids  them  be. 

We  can  hardly  dismiss  Christian  ethics  without 
referring  to  the  wide  difference  between  the  ethi- 
cal standard  of  the  Christian  Church  and  that  of 
its  Lord  and  Master.  I  was  once  visiting  a  mag- 
nificent church  edifice  with  a  friend  learned  in 
church  lore.  I  called  his  attention  to  the  unlike- 
ness  of  the  eagle  used  as  a  reading-desk  to  the 
eagle  of  the  skies.  "Yes,"  said  my  friend,  "you 
are  right ;  but  this  is  the  ecclesiastical  eagle,  pre- 
cisely as  it  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  Middle 
Ages."  Just  so,  there  is  a  traditional  type  of  the 
Christian  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  how 
remote  a  time  it  is  hard  to  say,  but  certainly  not 
from  the  skies,  and  not  from  Christ.  The  Chris- 
tian, as  such,  is  expected  to  do  certain  things  and 
to  abstain  from  certain  things,  to  attend  public 
worship  when  convenient,  to  observe  Christian 
ordinances,  and  to  keep  a  prudent  silence  when 
Christianity  is  assailed  or  vilified.  But  it  is  not 
regarded  as  absurd  to  speak  of  selfish  Christians, 
miserly  Christians,  unforgiving  Christians,  which 


216  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

ought  to  be  deemed  no  less  self-contradictory 
terms  than  Mahometan  Christians  or  atheistical 
Christians.  It  is  easier  to  account  for  this  condi- 
tion of  things  in  the  past  than  to  excuse  it  in  the 
present.  During  the  first  three  centuries,  when 
Christianity  was  making  rapid  progress,  its  very 
growth  rendered  it  legitimately  less  pure  than  had 
it  lingered  in  its  work  of  reformation.  A  large 
proportion  of  the  converts,  however  sincere  in 
their  adherence  to  the  new  religion,  brought  into 
its  fold  habits  and  tendencies  engendered  by  their 
previous  belief  and  culture,  which  were  not  wholly 
washed  away  in  their  Christian  baptism.  How 
far  the  cleansing  process  was  carried,  and  in  how 
many  illustrious  examples  it  seemed  complete  and 
entire,  is  among  the  greatest  marvels  of  history ; 
and  had  the  Christian  faith  remained  a  century 
longer  under  the  ban  of  the  empire,  its  tens  of 
thousands  might  have  vied  in  moral  purity  and 
excellence  with  the  little  band,  wont  before  the 
first  Christian  Pentecost  to  meet  in  the  large 
upper  room  in  Jerusalem.  But  when  Christianity 
became  the  established  religion  of  the  empire,  it 
had  to  take  on,  and  found  it  impossible  wholly  to 
cleanse,  the  impurities,  falsities,  and  wrongs  of 
high  station,  court-life,  and  arbitrary  power.  It 
indeed  modified  what  it  could  not  remove,  and 
utilized   much  which  it  could   not  make  better. 


THE  ETHICS   OF  PROTESTANTISM.        217 

But  the  term,  Christian,  in  the  imperial  palace 
meant  less  than  in  the  amphitheatre  of  savage 
martyrdom,  and  conversion  to  a  court-religion 
was  something  very  different  from  a  conversion 
which  might  consign  the  new  disciple  to  the  stake. 
Then,  too,  it  was  almost  inevitable  that  the  Church 
should  assume  the  power  so  readily  granted  by 
emperors  who  made  bishops  their  conscience-keep- 
ers ;  and  this  power,  in  order  to  maintain  itself, 
could  not  but  lay  the  intensest  stress  on  formal 
unity  in  the  Church.  Hence  the  paramount  im- 
portance attached  to  creed  and  ritual  as  the  only 
means  of  insuring  uniformity,  and  consolidating 
power.  Heresy  thus  became  the  one  unpardon- 
able sin ;  and  orthodoxy,  the  sole  test  of  Christian 
standing. 

The  Protestant  Reformation  was  one  of  allegi- 
ance and  opinion,  rather  than  of  morals.  The  cor- 
ruption of  the  Papacy,  indeed,  did  much  to  initiate 
and  energize  it ;  but  civil  power,  both  in  Germany 
and  in  England,  had  too  large  a  part  in  the  move- 
ment to  give  it  the  ethical  character  which  it 
had,  and  still  to  a  marvellous  degree  retains,  in 
Scotland  alone.  But  even  there,  and  wherever 
throughout  the  realm  of  Protestanism  there  has 
been  any  thing  like  religious  earnestness,  the 
prime  test  of  the  Christian  estate  has  been  con- 
formity to  a  prescribed  standard  of  belief  rather 


218  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

than  of  character.  It  is  impossible  that  two  col- 
lateral standards  should  be  of  equal  validity  and 
worth.  One  must  be  paramount;  the  other,  sec- 
ondar}'.  Bimetallism  is  practically  as  impossible 
in  the  Church  as  in  the  money-market.  If  assent 
to  a  creed  be  so  inexorably  required  as  a  title  to 
Christian  recognition  and  communion,  that  with- 
out such  assent  the  most  Christlike  man  living 
will  be  discarded  as  no  Christian,  it  is  absolutely 
impossible  that  character  as  a  test  and  standard 
should  not  be  held  as  of  comparatively  little 
worth  or  significance.  Not  that  the  creed  will 
pass  into  a  church  a  very  bad  man  ;  but  it  will 
put  a  very  moderately  and  imperfectly  good  man 
in  a  position  in  which  he  will  be  entirely  satisfied 
with  himself,  and  will  regard  himself  as  fully  com- 
petent to  judge  the  Christian  character  of  others, 
and  of  those  much  better  than  himself. 

There  are  those  of  a  more  liberal  faith,  or  of  a 
broader  church,  who  have  done  well  in  renoun- 
cing creeds  as  tests  of  Christian  character.  But 
they  none  the  less  need  a  test.  If  they  have  no 
right  to  account  men  as  Christians  for  believing 
as  they  themselves  do,  still  less  have  they  a  right 
to  regard  common  non-beliefs  as  a  ground  of 
Christian  recognition  or  fellowship.  Christlike- 
ness  should  be  our  sole  standard  of  self-judgment ; 
and  while  we  should  be  very  slow  to  judge  our 


« 
THE   TEST  OF  CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER.      219 

fellow-men,  we  cannot  account  as  of  the  true 
household  of  faith  those  who  claim  their  place  in 
it  solely  on  the  ground  of  belief  or  of  non-belief, 
but  must  so  regard  those  only  whom,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  the  broadest  charity,  we  can  recognize  as 
bearing,  or  at  least  as  desiring  and  endeavoring  to 
bear,  a  moral  and  spiritual  kinship  to  Christ. 


LECTURE  IX. 

MORAL   BEAUTY. 

Moral  beauty  is  that  which  produces  directly 
on  the  mind  an  effect  closely  corresponding  to 
that  which  is  produced  by  physical  beauty  through 
the  eye.  It  would  beaf  painting,  would  stand  the 
severest  tests  of  art,  and  in  its  pictorial  presenta- 
tion would  impress  the  beholder  with  its  loveli- 
ness. It  has  often  furnished  subjects  for  painting 
and  sculpture,  and  the  crowning  merit  of  many  of 
the  greatest  works  of  art  is  that  they  represent  it 
to  the  moral  sense  as  vividly  as  to  the  eye  skilled 
in  the  science  of  form  and  color.  They  sometimes 
give  a  grace  that  is  even  more  than  beauty  to  ob- 
jects which,  by  the  ordinary  standard  of  judgment, 
are  any  thing  rather  than  beautiful.  Thus,  in 
Domenichino's  picture  in  the  Vatican  of  the  Com- 
munion of  St.  Jerome,  you  might  search  the  alms- 
houses of  Christendom  in  vain  for  so  worn,  wan, 
ghastly,  and  even  squalid,  a  face  and  form  as  are 
given  to  the  old  saint ;  and  yet  even  to  the  ordi- 
nary beholder,  much  more  to  one  of  cultivated 
220 


BEAUTY  IN  ART.  221 

taste,  the  figure  is  made  beautiful  and  glorious  by 
the  glow  of  sight-like  faith  in  the  dying  eyes,  by 
the  visible  peace  of  God  that  rests  on  the  wrinkled 
and  wasted  countenance,  and  by  the  suggestive 
paraphernalia  of  the  holy  rite  that  is  to  give  the 
Christian  soldier  his  viaticum  for  his  last  conflict, 
in  which  he  seems  already  to  hear  the  plaudit  that 
awaits  his  victory. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  favorite  subjects  of 
mediaeval  art,  which  no  charms  of  physical  beauty 
can  make  otherwise  than  disgusting.  Thus,  there 
are  no  more  magnificent*female  forms  than  the 
Judiths,  there  is  no  more  fascinating  loveliness 
than  in  not  a  few  of  the  Herodiases ;  but  the 
dripping  heads  which  they  carry,  and  our  associa- 
tions with  the  savageness  of  the  one,  and  the 
heartless  wantonness  of  the  other,  completely  neu- 
tralize the  physical  beauty  by  the  sense  of  moral 
deformity. 

I  have  seen  almost  all  the  great  pictures  in  Eu- 
rope, and  I  cannot  recall  one  that  has  left  on  my 
mind  the  impression  of  beauty,  which  would  not, 
if  translated  into  life  and  reproduced  in  action, 
be  beautiful.  To  be  sure,  there  are,  as  in  the  last 
scenes  of  our  Saviour's  life,  in  many  of  these  pic- 
tures the  figures  of  persons  that  are  the  opposite 
of  morally  beautiful ;  but  the  picture  is  beautiful, 
only  when  the  person  or  the  act  that  is  morally 


222  MORAL  BEAUTY. 

beautiful  is  made  so  prominent  as  to  render  all 
else  accessory  to  its  representation.  Thus,  in 
many  of  the  pictures  of  Christ  before  the  judg- 
ment-seat and  on  the  cross,  the  beauty  of  the 
whole  is  enhanced,  because  cunning,  treachery, 
stupidity,  malice,  and  rage  are  so  grouped  and 
painted  as  to  bring  out  into  all  the  stronger 
light  the  loveliness  and  majesty  of  the  principal 
figure ;  while  in  the  comparatively  few  instances 
in  which  art  has  expended  its  strength  and  skill 
in  representing  the  Saviour's  sufferings  rather 
than  him  suffering,  the*e  is  no  beauty  whatever. 
I  have  said  thus  much  to  illustrate  the  position 
that  what  is  morally  beautiful  is  what  would  make 
a  beautiful  picture,  and  thus,  that  the  same  ele- 
ments underlie  beauty  in  nature,  in  art,  in  action, 
and  in  character. 

As  the  beautiful  in  nature  is  more  than  the  use- 
ful, so  is  the  beautiful  in  action  and  in  character 
more  than  the  good.  Straight  lines  and  sharp  an- 
gles do  not  look  beautiful  to  the  eye ;  nor  in  life, 
speech,  and  conduct  do  they  seem  beautiful  to  the 
mind.  In  natural  beauty  the  lines  seem  continu- 
ous, so  gently  does  curve  melt  into  curve.  In 
character,  however  good,  there  is  no  beauty  in 
sharp  angles,  in  brusquerie,  rudeness,  abruptness, 
least  of  all,  in  fits  of  goodness  which  have  their 
beginnings  and  endings,  with  the  life,  though  not 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  HOLINESS.  223 

bad,  on  a  lower  plane,  in  the  intervals.  Even 
when  there  is  no  lack  of  continuity,  a  character 
may  have  inflexible  rectitude,  literal  veracity, 
habits  sedulously  conformed  in  the  smallest  mi- 
nutiae to  the  rule  of  right,  and  it  may  have 
our  entire  approval,  our  sincere  though  cold  ad- 
miration, yet  may  have  no  beauty.  There  is  a 
style  of  goodness  that  reminds  one  of  a  skeleton 
hung  on  wires,  in  which  conscience  is  unrestingly 
active,  but  tbe  imagination  torpid  even  to  death, 
—  which  repels  sympathy,  and  makes  virtue  un- 
lovely. A  heaven  thus  peopled  would  seem  no 
paradise.  Grim  piety  may  be  of  subjective  worth 
to  the  individual  soul,  but  its  objective  value 
would  be  represented  by  a  negative  sign. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  beauty  of  holi- 
ness, in  which  there  are  the  hardier  muscles  and 
sinews  that  do  the  heavy  lifework,  but  filled  in 
and  rounded  out  in  perfect  symmetry  and  grace. 
Such  are  the  characters  that  wear  the  aureola  of 
a  perpetual  sainthood,  recognized  not  by  this  or 
that  sect  or  party,  but  by  all  who  love  what  is 
good  of  every  type,  the  Fenelons,  the  Oberlins, 
the  Florence  Nightingales,  those  whose  names  the 
heart  thrills  in  hearing,  those  who  cease  not 
to  shine  on  earth  when  they  become  stars  in 
heaven.  It  is  beauty  that  makes  their  sainthood 
as  precious  to  man  as  to  God.     Without  it,  they 


224  MORAL  BEAUTY. 

might  still  be  diamonds,  yet  diamonds  in  the 
rough,  of  which  only  the  expert  can  know  the 
value ;  but  God,  when  he  "  makes  up  his  jewels," 
polishes  the  precious  stones,  cuts  facets  on  them 
for  the  multiform  reflection  of  his  own  ineffable 
beaut}%  and  sets  them  in  the  purest  gold. 

As  in  character,  so  in  individual  acts,  there  is 
goodness  without  beauty,  and  there  is  goodness 
that  is  intensely  beautiful.  Thus,  pity,  divorced 
from  kindness  or  fellow-feeling,  —  a  worthy  senti- 
ment indeed,  but  the  same  that  is  felt  for  a  suffer- 
ing beast,  —  may  go  about  doing  good,  and  its  cold, 
sharp-angled  formalism  may  chill  and  starve  the 
souls  of  those  whose  bodies  it  feeds  and  warms  ; 
while  kindness  may  be  almost  empty-handed,  and 
yet  for  the  loveliness  of  its  beauty  be  blessed  by 
the  eye  that  sees  and  the  ear  that  hears.  There 
are  right  and  virtuous  acts  performed  from  a  re- 
luctant sense  of  duty  ;  and  these  I  would  by  no 
means  undervalue,  especially  as  they  mark  the 
first  stage  toward  the  condition  in  which  one  can 
say,  "  Oh,  how  love  I  thy  law!"  But  while  we 
recognize  these  acts  as  fitting  and  meritorious,  we 
see  no  beauty  in  them.  There  are  other  not  un- 
like acts  into  which  heart  and  soul  are  put  along 
with  mind  and  strength,  and  these  seem  as  beauti- 
ful as  they  are  good. 

Indeed,  the   element   of   beauty  bears   a   very 


BEAUTY  IN  JESUS  CHRIST.  225 

large  part  in  beneficence.  OVe  do  good,  in  very- 
great  measure,  by  the  virtue  that  goes  forth  from 
us,  by  the  aroma  of  character. )  I  said  in  a  former 
lecture,  that,  in  reckoning  the  product  of  benefi- 
cence, what  we  give,  or  say,  or  do  is  the  multipli- 
cand, ourselves  the  much  larger  multiplier.  Now, 
in  that  multiplier  such  grace  and  beauty  of  soul  as 
we  may  have  constitute  the  principal  factor.  In- 
fluence is  often  neutralized  by  the  unloveliness  of 
those  who  most  earnestly  strive  to  exert  it  for  the 
Right  and  the  Good.  Remonstrances  are  rendered 
unavailing  by  the  lack  of  a  meek  and  gentle 
spirit.  Example  is  bereft  of  its  due  power  by  de- 
fect in  point  of  symmetry  and  gracefulness,  and 
not  infrequently  by  the  clumsiness  and  awkward- 
ness that  always  disfigure  an  example  that  is  for- 
mally set,  even  in  cases  where  the  same  example 
left  to  set  itself  would  be  graceful.  But  genuine 
moral  beauty  will  do  its  beneficent  work  without 
attempting  it,  or  even  being  conscious  of  it. 
However  lowly,  it  cannot  be  hidden.  It  shines 
through  the  thickest  veil,  and  makes  the  most 
opaque  medium  transparent. 

We  have  the  fullest  manifestation  of  the  worth 
and  power  of  spiritual  beauty  in  the  life  of  Jesus 
Christ  on  the  earth.  In  its  gentleness  and  sweet- 
ness, its  compassion  and  mercy,  its  self-forgetting 
sacrifice,  its  unremitted   care  for  the  welfare  and 


226  MORAL  BEAUTY. 

happiness  of  the  ungrateful  and  the  sinful,  we 
have  not  a  mere  teacher  from  whose  lips  we  are 
to  receive  the  law  of  right,  nor  a  mere  exemplar 
after  whose  pattern  we  are  artificially  to  shape 
our  conduct,  but  one  whom  to  know  is  equally  to 
admire  and  to  love.  We  cannot  become  familiar 
with  his  walk  among  men,  and  with  the  heart 
whose  pulses  are  all  laid  open  to  our  view,  with- 
out our  souls  being  suffused  with  the  radiance  of 
a  beauty  in  whose  incarnation  we  see  the  fore- 
shining  of  heaven,  —  a  beauty  like  that  of  nature, 
infinite  and  exhaustless,  like  the  flowers  and  the 
stars,  the  glowing  sunsets  and  the  sparkling 
waters,  the  more  beautiful  the  longer  and  the 
oftener  we  look  upon  it. 

If  it  be  asked  what  constitutes  moral  beauty, 
I  hardly  know  a  better  answer  than  might  be 
given  in  the  one  word  moderation,  if  you  will 
take  into  view  all  that  the  word  means.  It  is  de- 
rived from  modus,  "  measure  ;  "  and  in  its  proper 
use  it  signifies  not  imperfection,  or  slowness,  or 
backwardness,  but  the  due  proportion  in  life  of 
all  the  elements  that  go  to  make  up  a  good  life. 
Of  virtue  there  can  be  no  excess ;  and  we  have 
had,  as  I  believe,  the  ideal  of  perfect  virtue  actual- 
ized but  once  on  earth.  But  individual  virtues 
may  exist  in  such  excess,  so  out  of  due  propor- 
tion, as  to   cease    to  be  virtues.     The  beauty  of 


SUBLIMITY   WITHOUT  BEAUTY.  227 

Christ's  character  consists,  in  great  part,  in  its 
perfect  balance.  Probably  among  those  who  most 
opposed  him  there  were  not  only  bad  men  and 
hypocrites,  but  specialists  in  virtue,  —  men  who 
nursed  some  one  virtue  out  of  due  proportion, 
and  held  others  in  inferior  esteem.  Were  he  liv- 
ing on  earth  now  with  no  external  token  of 
Christhood,  among  his  strongest  opponents  would 
be  some  of  the  extremists  in  morals  who  call 
themselves  by  his  name.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  their  types  of  virtue  would  find  as  little  sym- 
pathy from  him  as  he  would  show  with  the  vices 
that  they  denounce. 

Aristotle,  whose  ethics,  while  defective  in  fur- 
nishing no  sufficient  basis  or  ground  of  right,  are 
fraught  with  practical  suggestions  of  enduring 
value,  makes  virtue  to  consist  primarily  in  the 
avoidance  of  extremes.  Each  virtue  lies  between 
two  vices  or  non-virtues,  —  as  temperance,  between 
excess  and  asceticism  ;  courage,  between  rashness 
and  pusillanimity. 

As  in  nature  and  art,  so  in  character,  there  is 
sublimity  where  there  is  no  beauty.  A  really 
grand  character,  in  some  respects  even  grandly 
good,  may  have  defects  which  will  not  let  it  be 
beautiful.  Indeed,  grandeur  is  sometimes  created 
by  such  defects,  as  a  steep  ravine  at  its  side  will 
make    a   mountain    look   higher  than    it   is.     On 


228  MORAL   BEAUTY. 

the  other  hand,  there  are  characters  which  escape 
being  called  great  only  by  their  beauty,  by  their 
roundness  and  evenness,  by  the  unbroken  uni- 
formity of  their  goodness. 

Let  us  consider  some  of  the  things  that  are  not 
beautiful.  Passion  is  never  beautiful.  Its  name 
defines  its  nature.  It  differs  from  patience,  though 
derived  from  the  same  verb,  —  patience,  from  the 
present,  the  active  participle,  denoting  suffering, 
and  connoting  the  brave  spirit  in  which  it  is  borne ; 
passion,  from  the  past  and  neuter  participle,  de- 
noting entire  subdual  and  subjection,  — a  state  in 
which  the  man  does  not  possess  himself,  but  the 
feeling  possesses  the  man,  gets  supremacy  over  his 
will-power,  and  forces  him  to  do  what  he  else 
would  not  do.  This  position  of  a  human  being's 
will-power  is  in  itself  so  unbecoming  that  it  is  not 
in  any  of  its  forms  susceptible  of  beauty.  There 
is  no  need  of  my  saying  this  of  the  malevolent  af- 
fections. They  are  capable  of  grandeur,  nay,  they 
are  almost  essential  to  tragedy,  and  play  a  large 
part  in  sensational  romances  and  novels ;  but  ex- 
cept when  they  are  made  the  background  for  some 
intensely  lovely  character  or  act,  they  exclude  the 
drama  or  fiction  in  which  they  are  portraj-ed  from 
the  catalogue  of  the  beautiful  in  literature. 

But  not  only  the  malevolent  affections,  even 
love,  while  as  an  affection  it  is  in   every  aspect 


AMBITION.  229 

and  manifestation  beautiful,  ceases  to  be  so  when 
it  becomes  a  passion.  In  the  entire  range  of  an- 
cient and  modern  literature,  there  are  no  more 
beautiful  characters  than  those  of  Andromache 
and  Penelope ;  while  Helen,  though  for  physical 
beauty  she  wins  the  prize  in  competition  with  the 
very  goddesses,  repels,  even  in  her  woes  and  her 
bitter  end,  the  sympathy  which  we  feel  so  pro- 
foundly with  the  faithful  wives.  In  the  ^Eneid, 
too,  our  pity  for  Dido  is  largely  alloyed  with  dis- 
gust. Love,  as  an  affection,  is  reserved,  modest, 
self-sacrificing,  utterly  unselfish,  desiring  above 
all  things  that  its  subject  and  its  object  may  be 
worthy  of  each  other  by  the  highest  standard  of 
excellence.  Love,  as  a  passion,  is  demonstrative, 
fierce,  truculent,  exacting,  selfish,  or,  if  self-sacri- 
ficing, always  ready  to  sacrifice  its  object  with 
itself. 

Ambition,  as  an  impelling  motive  on  an  honor- 
able career,  is  beautiful,  as  it  maintains  that  equi- 
librium of  the  higher  nature,  in  which  the  powers 
are  evenly  balanced  forces,  and  act  in  harmony 
and  mutual  helpfulness;  while  it  sees  in  those 
above  itself  goals  to  be  reached,  or,  if  possible, 
passed,  as  mile-stones  on  the  ascending  way,  not 
rivals  to  be  supplanted.  But  envy,  hostile  rivalry, 
the  desire  to  excel,  not  by  outrunning  others,  but 
by  tripping  them  up  in  the  race,  makes  ambition 


230  MORAL    BEAUTY. 

hideous  and  hateful;  for  then  it  has  become  a  pas- 
sion, without  any  moral  will-power  to  withstand 
or  temper  it. 

Even  the  most  sacred  religious  affections,  when 
made  passions,  or  carried  to  excess,  cease  to  be 
beautiful.  Fanaticism  is  sincere  and  earnest,  but 
it  makes  a  passion  of  an  affection.  Prayer,  praise, 
and  all  forms  of  worship  in  which  a  truly  devout 
spirit  seeks  its  natural  utterance,  are  as  beautiful 
as  they  are  holy,  when  they  recognize  the  divine 
presence  as  the  one  supreme  fact  of  human  exist- 
ence, and  recognize,  too,  the  sacredness  no  less 
than  the  lovingness  of  that  presence.  But  fanati- 
cism presents  an  idea  of  the  Supreme  Being  which 
would  give  us  repulsive  associations  with  a  human 
potentate.  His  favor  is  capricious,  and  needs  to 
be  taken  by  storm.  He  has  his  favorites,  and  they 
obtain  their  place  by  noisy  importunity,  and  keep 
it  by  vulgar  familiarity.  Men  are  to  be  heard 
for  their  "  much  speaking,1'  rather  than  for  the 
quality  of  their  prayers,  or  of  the  hearts  that  pray. 
In  fine,  there  is  no  point  at  which  there  is  not  the 
broadest  discrepancy  between  the  fanatic's  God 
and  the  Father,  equally  of  all  men  and  of  every 
man,  whom  Jesus  Christ  revealed  and  manifested, 
—  whose  very  presence  is  a  law  of  beauty,  and,  so 
far  as  it  is  felt,  must  make  his  worship  the  beauty 
of  holiness. 


SANCTITY  AND   SANCTIMONY.  231 

There  are  hardly  any  two  words  that  from  their 
derivation  ought  to  be  of  closer  kindred  and  sig- 
nificance than  sanctity  and  sanctimony ;  and  there 
are  hardly  any  two  that  are  farther  apart.  Sanc- 
tity is  always  beautiful.  There  have  been  those  on 
whom  rested  visibly  the  seal  of  Gcd  in  lip,  and 
brow,  and  mien,  whose  presence  was  a  benedic- 
tion, who  never  obtruded  sacred  themes,  but  made 
common  themes  sacred  by  the  unction  from  the 
Holy  One  which  shed  its  fragrance  over  and  in  all 
their  social  intercourse.  We  know  such  persons 
now.  I  have  had  such  guests  in  my  house,  and 
have  had  in  them  all  that  I  could  have  enjoyed  in 
angels'  visits.  I  have  received  such  guests  as 
strangers,  and  have  found  that  I  was  "  entertain- 
ing angels  unawares."  These  are  the  persons  who 
literally  "pray  without  ceasing;"  that  is,  devo- 
tional thoughts  have  so  incorporated  themselves 
with  their  whole  inward  being,  that  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  present  God  forms  an  inseparable  part 
of  their  own  consciousness,  and  is  thus  an  insep- 
arable element  in  all  that  they  say  and  do.  Now, 
sanctimony,  meaning  to  be  a  copy  of  this  grace 
which  cannot  be  copied,  becomes  its  unsightly  and 
disgusting  caricature.  It  saddens  and  lengthens 
the  countenance  which  there  is  no  flame  of  devo- 
tion to  light ;  it  substitutes  a  sepulchral  whine  for 
the  strains  as  from  silver  bells  in  which  true  god- 


232  MORAL  BEAUTY. 

liness  finds  utterance  ;  and  in  air  and-  manner  it 
puts  on  the  holiness  which  it  has  not  taken  in, 
and  the  mask  fits  so  ill  as  to  show  all  its  seams 
and  sutures.  It  is  often  a  mere  shallow  pretence, 
at  the  outset  devoid  of  sincerity,  and  becoming 
sincere  only  in  the  limited  sense  in  which  an  actor 
grows  into  the  part  which  he  has  played  often  and 
long,  or  in  which  a  mask,  that  so  stuck  to  the 
face  that  it  could  not  be  torn  off,  would  become  a 
part  of  the  face.  When  there  is  in  it  any  degree 
of  inwardness  or  of  genuine  feeling,  it  must  be 
the  rareness  and  unfamiliarity  of  the  feeling  that 
clothe  it  in  so  grotesque  a  garb. 

Asceticism  is  another  form  of  false  or  mistaken 
devotion  that  is  wholly  destitute  of  'beauty.  It 
had,  indeed,  as  I  said  in  a  former  lecture,  its  origin 
in  the  unlovely  conception  of  the  almost  semi- 
omnipotence  of  Satan.  If  you  will  look  through 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Christian  Scriptures,  you  will 
find  them  pervaded  by  the  idea  that  the  moderate, 
yet  free  and  generous  use  of  what  God  has  given 
us  is  at  least  one  of  the  ways  in  which  he  would 
have  us  own  his  goodness.  Wanton,  needless  self- 
denial,  the  refusal  on  the  ground  of  piety  to  avail 
one's  self  of  benefits  and  blessings  from  the  hand 
of  God,  is  as  unbecoming  and  unbeautiful  as  it 
would  be  for  children  to  spurn  and  throw  away  a 
father's  or  a  mother's  Christmas  presents  because 


ASCETICISM.  233 

they  were  so  tasteful  and  elegant.  Yet  for  many 
centuries,  scorn  of  the  comforts  of  this  life  was 
thought  the  surest  way  to  heaven.  Even  the  lux- 
ury of  decency  and  cleanliness  was  renounced  and 
denounced.  It  was  the  boast  of  Thomas  a  Becket, 
that,  from  the  time  that  he  became  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  no  water  ever  came  into  contact  with 
his  body ;  and  among  the  many  blessed  tokens 
of  sainthood  in  Francis  of  Assisi,  the  mediaeval 
chroniclers  numbered  the  disgusting  fact,  that,  at 
a  certain  stage  of  his  growth  in  grace,  street-offal 
was  his  chosen  food.  Self-denial  for  the  sake  of 
others  is  always  graceful  and  beautiful ;  but  even 
more  so  is  the  sharing  of  whatever  belongs  to  the 
sunny  side  of  life  with  those  who  can  be  brought 
over  from  the  shady  side,  thus  creating  a  commu- 
nity of  feeling  which  is  often  of  more  worth  than 
mere  gifts  can  be.  The  sending  to  those  in  need 
what  the  giver  deprives  himself  of  for  their  com- 
fort is  lovely  and  beautiful ;  but  far  more  so  would 
be  the  literal  carrying  out  of  our  Saviour's  exhor- 
tation, "When  thou  makest  a  feast,  call  the  poor, 
the  maimed,  the  lame,  the  blind."  Such  a  feast 
might,  I  think,  make  a  fair  show  in  Christian  art; 
and  I  am  sure  that  it  would  bring  down  heavenly 
witnesses  who  would  pronounce  it  beautiful.  But 
monasticism,  cenobitism,  and  all  self-imposed  au- 
sterities, are  unlovely  in  their  exterior  aspects,  and 


234  MORAL   BEAUTY. 

fully  as  much  so  in  their  meaning  and  spirit,  in 
which  they  are  inseparable  from  the  theory  that 
gave  them  birth,  that  of  Satan's  power  in  the  crea- 
tion and  government  of  the  outward  universe. 

To  pass  to  the  second  great  commandment, 
philanthropy,  when  made  a  passion,  loses  all  its 
beauty.  Nothing  can  be  more  lovely  than  the 
life  devoted  with  perfect  singleness  of  purpose  to 
the  doing  of  good;  and  since  in  this,  as  in  every 
department  of  life,  a  division  of  labor  economizes 
power,  and  enhances  its  products,  it  is  certainly 
desirable  that  every  servant  of  man  should  have 
his  or  her  special  branch  of  service  and  walk  of 
usefulness.  But  when  one  comes  to  regard  his  as 
the  only  service  and  the  only  work,  and  his  spe- 
cific way  of  doing  it  as  alone  worthy  of  tolerance, 
he  in  his  passion  makes  his  work  unlovely,  his 
cause  repulsive,  and  to  many  undiscerning  minds 
philanthropy  itself  odious.  As  the  rapid  runner 
makes  the  breeze  that  stops  his  breath,  so  does 
philanthropy  of  the  type  of  which  I  am  now  speak- 
ing create  the  opposition  with  which  it  wrestles, 
and  the  best  causes  have  often  found  their  greatest 
hinderances  in  their  advocates.  Such  philanthropy 
has  hatred  as  vehement  as  its  love ;  and  whatever 
odium  it  attracts,  it  receives  no  more  than  it 
bestows. 

Here  we  see  the  need  and  the  efficacy  of  our 


SELF-CONTROL.  235 

Saviour's  making  the  two  laws  of  love  to  God  and 
love  to  man  one  and  the  same  law.  Neither  can 
be  parted  from  the  other  without  losing  all  its 
beauty.  They  are  needed  to  clarify  and  sweeten 
each  other.  Nay,  they  are  both  needed  for  each 
other's  fulness.  Piety  needs  love  to  man,  that  its 
glow  may  neither  cool  in  its  source  nor  slacken 
in  its  flow.  Philanthropy  needs  love  to  God  to 
redeem  it  from  acridness  and  bitterness.  It  is 
for  lack  of  this  union  that  Christianity  has  often 
been  unlovely,  and  while  in  fact  the  most  beauti- 
ful child  of  heaven,  has  dragged  her  honor  in  the 
dust.  The  persecution  of  Christians  by  Christians 
has  been  often,  no  doubt,  urged  by  a  piety,  sincere 
after  its  sort,  but  not  by  a  man-loving  piety.  When 
human  wrongs  have  been  violently  wrested  into 
right,  and  Satan  has  been  cast  out  by  Satan,  it  has 
been  by  a  philanthropy,  however  earnest,  not  God- 
loving. 

I  have  spoken  of  passion  or  excess  as  fatal  to 
beauty  in  character.  This  leads  me  to  name  self- 
government  and  self-discipline  as  among  its  essen- 
tial factors.  Do  not  imagine  that  the  self-con- 
tained and  self-controlled  spirit  lacks  depth.  It 
is  the  shallow  lake  that  has  a  quick,  short  swell, 
and  can  be  lashed  into  fury  by  a  breeze  that  will 
not  quicken  the  ocean's  pulse.  The  descriptive 
terms  which  St.  Paul  applies  to  the  character  that 


236  MORAL   BEAUTY. 

ought  to  be,  —  "steadfast,  immovable," — were  vir- 
tually applied  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  also  to  the 
higher  forms  of  excellence.  "  He  that  doeth  these 
things  shall  never  be  moved."  There  is  a  repose, 
a  quietness  of  spirit,  which  indicates  depth  and 
fulness,  which  has  no  spring-tides  because  it  has 
no  neap-tides,  in  which  devotion  has  not  its  fitful 
sojourn,  but  its  settled  home,  in  which  not  man 
collectively,  but  individual  men,  whatever  their 
needs  or  their  sins,  can  always  find  heart-room, 
in  which  there  is  fervor  without  effervescence, 
charity  without  favoritism,  —  a  walk  with  God  in 
which  "Our  Father,"  not  "My  Father,"  is  the 
formula  of  devotion,  a  walk  with  men  in  which 
the  common  divine  fatherhood  is  never  lost  from 
thought ;  and  in  such  a  soul  and  life  we  have 
the  most  perfect  illustration  of  ethical  beauty,  of 
spiritual  loveliness,  of  the  type  of  character  which 
it  was  Christ's  mission  to  create  among  men. 

At  the  close  of  a  former  lecture  I  spoke  of  man- 
ners as  an  important  part  of  morals.  Indeed,  I 
think  that  we  have  reason  to  regret  that  we  have 
in  our  language  different  words  to  designate  man- 
ners and  morals.  It  were  better  if,  as  in  the 
Greek  and  the  Latin,  we  had  but  one  word  ;  for 
we  are  too  prone  to  assign  to  manners  a  lower 
place,  while  in  a  large  proportion  of  the  inter- 
course of  life,  manners  are  the  only  morals  that 


MANNERS.  237 

we  can  put  into  practice.  They  have  a  most  mo- 
mentous aesthetic  importance.  In  a  certain  sense 
and  degree  they  are  the  outcome  of  character, 
and  yet  they  need  thought  and  care  on  their  own 
account.  The  character  that  is  not  beautiful  may 
have  elegant  manners,  graceful  manners,  fascinat- 
ing manners ;  yet  still  the  manners  will  lack  a 
grace  that  can  come  only  from  within,  and  cannot 
be  put  on  or  copied.  I  think  that  we  always  rec- 
nize  the  outwardness  of  the  manners  when  they 
do  not  correspond  with  the  character.  But  a 
thoroughly  beautiful  character  may  fail  to  do  it- 
self justice  in  manners. 

In  manners,  as  in  character,  moderation  is  the 
law  of  beauty.  There  is  an  overdoing  of  sincere 
kindness  which  is  oppressive  in  its  very  ardor  and 
earnestness ;  while  kindness  may  make  itself  felt  in 
less  demonstrative  and  more  quiet  ways.  There 
is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  reserve  cr  backwardness, 
often  proceeding  from  diffidence,  which  has  much 
of  the  outward  bearing  of  haughtiness  or  pride, 
and  which  precludes  the  expression  of  the  genuine 
good  feeling  that  is  smothered  behind  it.  Now, 
while  affectation  in  manners  is  only  and  hardly 
less  displeasing  than  hypocrisy  in  character,  it 
is  every  man's  right  for  his  own  sake,  and  his 
duty  for  the  sake  of  others,  to  give  full  expression 
in  manners  to  what  he  is  conscious  of  feeling  and 


238  MOBAL   BEAUTY. 

of  being ;  and  therefore  manners,  not  as  a  substi- 
tute for  character,  but  as  the  sign-language  of 
character,  deserve  special  heed,  and  even  careful 
culture.  They  have  too  important  a  part  in  the 
happiness  of  society  to  be  a  matter  of  indifference, 
and  they  are  often  of  inestimable  worth  in  open- 
ing avenues  of  usefulness,  and  making  a  good  life 
helpful  and  serviceable.  I  am  very  much  im- 
pressed with  the  traits  of  genuine  courtesy  in  the 
life  and  writings  of  St.  Paul.  It  evidently  was  a 
part  of  his  plan  of  duty  to  conciliate  good  will  in 
all  matters  in  which  there  was  no  question  of 
right  or  wrong,  that  he  might  thus  gain  access  for 
the  truth  that  he  taught;  and  we  have  ample 
evidence  that  he  thus  found  an  acceptance  for 
his  evangelic  message  —  as  among  the  Athenians, 
before  Roman  officials,  on  shipboard,  and  with  the 
people  whom  he  encountered  at  Malta  —  which 
could  not  have  been  accorded,  even  to  a  man  of 
his  undoubted  ability  and  power  of  persuasion, 
had  there  not  been  a  beauty  of  holiness  in  his 
address  and  manners,  the  counterpart  of  the  quali- 
ties which  made  him  in  spiritual  power  foremost 
among  the  apostles  of  the  new  faith. 

What  I  want  to  emphasize,  and  I  would  fain  do 
it  by  so  illustrious  example,  is  the  ethical  impor- 
tance of  manners  as  an  expression  of  character. 
Courtesy,  which  is  the  sum  of  whatever  is  beauti- 


SOURCES  OF  DISCOURTESY.  239 

ful  in  character,  deserves  its  place  among  the  vir- 
tues; and  in  our  division  of  the  virtues  it  properly 
belongs  under  two  heads,  —  under  that  of  justice, 
as  to  its  motive  and  its  spirit;  under  that  of  order, 
as  to  its  means  and  methods.  These  methods  al- 
ways claim  careful  attention  ;  for  that  —  be  it 
word,  or  look,  or  posture,  or  gesture  —  which  has 
been  habitually  used  to  express  a  particular  feel- 
ing, is  the  readiest  and  best  mode  of  expressing  it, 
and  the  feeling  may  not  be  understood  or  inferred, 
if  not  expressed  in  the  accustomed  way. 

But  the  feeling  from  which  courtesy  proceeds 
demands  our  foremost  consideration,  and  we  may 
have  a  clearer  comprehension  of  it  if  we  consider 
the  sources  of  discourtesy.  It  always  comes  from 
selfishness  in  some  one  of  its  Protean  forms, — 
self-conceit,  usurping  a  higher  than  its  due  place, 
and  claiming  more  than  its  due  deference ;  self- 
indulgence,  shirking  the  restraint  and  obligation 
of  watchful  kindness  ;  self-assertion,  jealous  of 
another's  worthy  claims  on  regard ;  self-love,  so 
intense  as  to  be  unconscious  of  the  boundary  be- 
tween its  own  and  another's  rights;  self-exalta- 
tion, so  inflated  as  to  seize  precedence  without  so 
much  as  imagining  that  there  can  be  a  rival  can- 
didate for  it.  "  In  honor  preferring  one  another," 
is  the  precept  without  obeying  which  courtesy 
cannot  be. 


240  MORAL   BEAUTY. 

Yet  how  can  this  precept  be  obeyed  ?  We 
have  our  differing  measures  of  intelligence  and 
worth,  our  rightful  places,  our  due  claims  to  es- 
teem, regard,  and  honor.  How  are  we  to  ignore 
these,  and  thus  to  misplace  ourselves  by  preferring 
others  ?  I  answer,  that  if  we  feel  our  superiority, 
we  shall  not  ignore  it,  and  discourtesy  will  become 
our  settled  habit.  If  we  are  not  lowly  in  spirit, 
we  cannot  observe  due  courtesy  in  our  social  re- 
lations. But  there  are  views  that  ought  to  make 
us  lowly.  The  moon  and  the  planets  have  a  very 
sensible  parallax  as  seen  from  different  parts  of 
the  earth's  surface ;  while  the  fixed  stars  are  so 
far  off,  that  they  appear  at  the  same,  or  nearly  the 
same,  point  from  opposite  sides  of  the  earth's 
orbit,  thus  annihilating  in  comparison  with  their 
immense  distance  the  earthly  distances  that  seem 
so  vast.  So,  when  we  barely  look  at  one  another, 
we  may  seem  very  far  apart,  and  on  widely  differ- 
ent planes ;  but  our  distances  dwindle  into  naught 
in  our  common  distance  from  the  infinite  God,  the 
sinful  from  the  Holy,  the  ignorant  from  the  Om- 
niscient, the  feeble  from  the  Omnipotent,  the 
child  of  the  dust  and  the  prey  of  death  from  him 
whose  years  are  eternity.  Such  views,  while  they 
elevate  our  aspirations  and  our  hopes,  level  our 
self-esteem.  While  they  forbid  us  not  to  deem 
ourselves   the  brethren  of  angels,  they  make  us 


PIETY,  A   SOURCE  OF  COURTESY.         241 

more  than  we  else  can  be,  the  brethren  of  all 
men. 

Then,  too,  as  regards  the  very  advantages  the 
possession  of  which  is  most  prone  to  make  us 
discourteous  or  non-courteous  to  those  who  lack 
them,  there  may  well  come  to  us  the  question, 
"  What  hast  thou  which  thou  hast  not  received  ?  " 
To  say  nothing  of  the  divine  Giver,  the  advan- 
tages on  which  men  are  prone  so  to  plume  them- 
selves as  to  withhold  courteous  observance  from 
those  who  have  them  not,  are  precisely  those  which 
they  have  had  no  agency,  or  but  a  secondary 
agency,  in  procuring  for  themselves.  Parentage 
and  family  are  not  of  their  own  selection.  Wealth 
either  is  inherited,  or  has  grown  under  conditions 
often  not  at  one's  own  command,  which,  slightly 
changed,  would  have  issued  in  failure.  Culture, 
for  the  most  part,  had  its  beginnings,  its  directions, 
and  its  good  promise,  from  parental  oversight. 
Social  position  one  is  oftener  born  into,  or  grows 
into  unconsciously,  than  he  makes  it  for  himself. 
He  who  feels  all  this  will  bear  his  advantages 
meekly,  and  they  will  be  but  the  measure  of  the 
kind  courtesy  which  he  will  deem  it  his  privilege 
to  render. 

But,  above  all,  piety  toward  God,  sincere  and 
pervading,  cannot  but  show  its  beautifying  power 
in  every  form  and  observance  of  courteous  bear- 


242  MORAL  BEAUTY. 

ing  and  conduct  toward  men.  We  cannot  wound 
where  he  blesses.  We  cannot  be  rude  to  those 
under  the  smile  of  his  infinite  benignity.  We  can- 
not be  unmindful  even  of  minute  amenities  and 
kindnesses  where  his  love  flows,  not  only  in  the 
grand  current  of  a  general  providence,  but  in 
the  slender  yet  unceasing  rills  of  mercy  that  rip- 
ple by  every  hearthstone,  and  gush  and  sparkle 
for  the  refreshment  of  every  living  soul. 

But  while  courtesy  can  have  its  perennial 
source  only  in  profound  religious  feeling,  it  re- 
quires, like  every  other  specific  virtue,  vigilance 
and  painstaking,  that  it  be  guarded,  directed,  and 
nourished.  In  this  matter,  as  in  so  many  others, 
it  may  be  said  with  emphasis,  "  Whoso  offendeth 
not  in  word,  the  same  is  a  perfect  man."  Selfish- 
ness, subdued  and  controlled  in  every  thing  else, 
is  prone  to  take  the  tongue  for  its  last  stronghold. 
We  are  tempted  thus  to  show  our  superiority, 
though  it  put  others  to  shame,  —  our  large  lib- 
erty, though  they  be  scandalized  by  it,  —  our  wit, 
though  it  be  at  their  expense,  and  to  their  keen 
mortification.  We  find  it  hard  to  forbear  from 
what  may  interest  or  amuse  for  the  moment,  may 
help  our  favorable  reception,  may  win  for  us 
greedy  listeners,  yet  may  leave  a  sting  behind, 
and  inflict  a  rankling  wound.  Who  is  there  that 
has    not   been    thus   made   a    sufferer?      Conver- 


COURTESY,    WHERE  SPECIALLY  NEEDFUL.    243 

sation  is  often,  under  the  show  of  friendliness,  a 
covert  strife,  —  a  mutual  attempt  to  mortify  self- 
love,  unduly  strong,  it  may  be,  on  either  side,  un- 
duly sensitive  on  both.  This  gift  of  speech  is  a 
most  perilous  endowment,  demanding  the  high- 
est, though  we  are  prone  to  give  to  it  the  lowest, 
measure  of  Christian  restraint  and  discipline. 
With  regard  to  this,  as  to  every  other  department 
of  social  life,  the  sum  of  courtes}r,  and  thus  of 
moral  beaut}',  is  comprised  in  the  law,  "Do  to 
another  only  that  which  thou  wouldst  have  done 
to  thyself."  When  we  thus  make  our  expectation 
our  rule,  it  can  hardly  fail  to  be  a  rule  of  right. 
I  have  given  this  large  space  to  courtesy,  because 
the  aesthetic  side  of  moral  dut}r  is  neglected  or 
slighted  in  most  ethical  treatises,  while  next  to  the 
primal  duties  of  purity,  soberness,  truth,  integrity, 
and  charity,  there  is  no  quality  of  character  that 
contributes  so  largely  to  social  and  domestic  hap- 
piness and  well-being. 

This  type  of  virtue  has  its  claims  to  the  careful 
observance  of  those  whose  profession  places  them 
in  peculiarly  delicate  relations  with  society,  espe- 
cially of  physicians  and  clergymen.  To  speak  of 
my  own  profession  alone,  there  have  been,  indeed, 
great  preachers  who  have  been  boors,  and  some- 
times almost  brutes,  in  their  manners.  But  such 
men  are  unfit  to  be  seen  or  heard  anywhere  save 


2H  MORAL   BEAUTY, 

in  the  pulpit,  and  there  are  wholly  out  of  place. 
A  minister  has  to  meet  those  under  his  charge  at 
those  critical  seasons  when  every  sensitive  fibre  is 
ajar,  when  only  a  hand  as  gentle  as  it  is  firm  can 
guide  them  through  the  stress  of  trial  or  of  grief, 
when  only  a  voice  as  tender  in  its  utterance  as  it 
is  strong  and  confident  in  its  affirmation  of  eternal 
truths  can  give  consolation  and  peace.  The  min- 
ister, too,  in  this  as  in  all  that  is  excellent,  should 
be  an  example  to  his  flock.  He  can  gain  nothing 
except  a  brief  notoriety,  which  is  not  reputation, 
by  rude  speech  and  rough  ways.  They  will  give 
him  no  credit  where  credit  is  of  any  worth ;  and, 
what  is  of  more  consequence,  they  will  give  no 
credit  to  the  religion  which  he  is  bound  to  cherish 
and  defend,  but  will  only  multiply  those  worst  of 
wounds,  of  which  it  never  received  more  than 
now,  in  the  house  and  at  the  hands  of  its  pro- 
fessed friends. 

I  have  in  this  lecture  spoken  of  goodness  in  its 
higher  forms  as  always  beautiful.  Why,  then, 
may  not  beauty  be  taken  as  the  test  of  moral  acts, 
so  that  we  should  consider  ourselves  as  bound 
always  to  do  that  which  is  beautiful,  instead  of 
attempting  to  determine  what  is  fitting  ?  I  an- 
swer, first,  that,  though  the  will  of  a  Supreme 
Being  who  loves  beauty  no  less  than  goodness  has 
made  the  good  and  the  beautiful  identical,  beauty 


BEAUTY,  NOT  A    TEST  OF  THE  RIGHT.      245 

does  not  necessarily  carry  with  it  the  idea  of  obli- 
gation. Because  an  act  looks  beautiful,  I  do  not 
therefore  feel  bound  to  perform  it,  or  self-con- 
demned because  I  omit  it.  But  I  cannot  perceive 
an  act  to  be  fitting  without  feeling  that  I  ought  to 
perform  it,  and  condemning  myself  if  I  leave  it 
undone.  Fittingness  has  obligation  inseparably 
bound  up  with  it :  beauty  has  not.  Indeed,  the 
beautiful  covers  a  much  wider  ground  than  the 
fitting.  Though  nothing  bad  is  beautiful,  there 
are  many  beautiful  objects  and  acts  that  have  no 
definite  moral  character.  There  are  large  depart- 
ments of  art,  taste,  social  refinement,  which  em- 
brace various  details  of  beauty,  of  even  exquisite 
beauty,  worthy  to  be  prized,  admired,  sought,  and 
cherished,  yet  as  to  which  conscience  has  no  word 
of  approval,  still  less,  of  censure.  I  may  cultivate 
the  beautiful  largely  and  sedulously  on  the  neutral 
ground  as  to  which  there  is  no  direct  moral  obli- 
gation, though  on  this  ground,  as  on  every  field 
which  human  action  can  cover,  there  may  arise 
questions  as  to  moral  obligation. 

In  the  next  place,  beauty  cannot  be  a  moral 
test,  because  beauty  is  the  characteristic  of  com- 
posite and  matured  goodness  rather  than  of  indi- 
vidual acts,  and  when  of  individual  acts,  of  the 
acts  and  their  grouping  taken  collectively.  The 
lily  is  a  beautiful  flower ;  but  you  are  in  no  way 


246  MORAL    BEAUTY. 

impressed  by  the  beauty  of  a  single  petal  taken 
from  the  flower.  All  that  you  can  say  of  it  is, 
that  it  is  not  the  opposite  of  beautiful.  But  if 
you  leave  out  that  one  petal,  you  have  spoiled  the 
beauty  of  the  flower.  So,  in  moral  conduct,  the 
individual  right  act,  especially  while  it  remains 
an  object  of  choice,  may  not  impress  you  with  its 
beauty,  and  a  very  different  act  in  its  place  may 
seem  to  you  more  beautiful.  But  that  right  act, 
as  one  of  the  petals  of  }^our  virtue  when  it  shall 
have  attained  its  full  bloom,  will  have  its  part  in 
the  blossoming  beauty,  and  its  absence  will  be  a 
sad  blemish  in  that  beauty.  Let  me  illustrate 
what  I  mean  by  a  supposed  case.  I  have  a  sum 
of  money  in  hand,  more  than  I  need  for  immediate 
use,  but  it  may  be  several  months  before  I  shall 
again,  if  ever,  have  a  surplus  beyond  my  necessi- 
ties. I  owe  a  debt,  which  I  ought  to  pay,  yet  can 
postpone,  but  with  some  risk  of  not  being  able  to 
pay  it.  An  urgent  demand  is  made  upon  my 
charity,  in  a  case  of  extreme  need  and  one  that 
claims  my  warmest  sympathy.  If  I  merely  ask 
myself  what  is  the  most  beautiful  thing  to  be 
done,  I  certainly  shall  give  my  money  to  relieve 
the  distress  which  craves  my  aid,  and  trust,  not  to 
Providence,  but  to  improvidence,  for  some  now 
unforeseen  means  of  paying  my  debt.  If  I  ask 
myself  what  is  fitting,  I  shall  pay  the  debt,  and 


GROWTH   OF  MORAL   BEAUTY.  247 

yet  T  shall  feel  at  the  time  that  in  dismissing  this 
call  of  charity  I  am  doing  what  is  not  beautiful. 
But  in  the  aggregate  of  an  upright  life,  if  I  shall 
lead  such  a  life,  this  turning  of  a  deaf  ear  to  the 
call  of  pity  will  look  beautiful,  and  had  I  wronged 
my  creditor  to  relieve  the  sufferer,  there  would 
have  been  a  petal  wanting  in  my  lily,  —  a  lack  of 
the  perfect  beauty,  which  can  be  made  up  only  by 
parts  and  pieces,  but  to  which  entireness  and  sym- 
metry in  all  its  parts  are  absolutely  essential. 

We  are,  then,  to  make  the  fittingness  or  Tightness 
of  each  individual  act  our  standard,  our  reason  for 
doing  or  for  not  doing ;  while  the  hope  of  build- 
ing up  a  character  that  shall  be  beautiful  in  our 
own  consciousness  and  in  the  sight  of  God  may 
well  be  among  our  foremost  motives  to  individual 
acts  of  duty.  We  may  feel,  too,  that  this  inward 
beauty  is  of  indefinite  growth,  —  may  be  constantly 
adding  to  its  fineness  of  fibre,  its  richness  of  tint, 
its  delicacy  of  outline.  Still  more,  it  is  its  own 
beautifier.  It  constantly  suggests  ways  in  which 
it  may  be  brought  still  nearer  perfection.  Behold- 
ing in  God  the  Supremely  Beautiful,  the  nearer 
its  approach  to  him,  the  more  clearly  does  it  see 
what  in  itself  may  yet  be  corrected,  added,  sup- 
plied, filled  in.  Therefore  is  it  that  those  who 
are  the  nearest  to  perfection  are  prone  to  feel 
themselves  farthest  from  it,  so  that  even  a  Paul 


248  MORAL  BEAUTY. 

can  say,  "  Not  that  I  have  already  attained,  or  am 
already  perfect."  These  saints  are  not  less  good 
than  they  seem ;  but  the  perfect  beauty  of  holi- 
ness keeps  them  perpetually  aware  of  what  is 
still  wanting  in  themselves,  and  therefore  perpet- 
ually growing  into  the  perfectness  that  globes  it- 
self in  ever  richer  radiance  to  their  view,  as  they 
themselves  bear  more  and  more  of  its  image. 


LECTURE  X. 

HEDONISM. 

The  ethics  of  the  latest  physical  philosophy 
will  be  my  subject  to-day.  I  might  entitle  my 
lecture  "  The  Ethics  of  Positivism,"  for  I  believe 
that  all  the  leading  positivists  of  the  present  time 
are  evolutionists ;  but  it  has  been  and  might  be 
otherwise  :  while  it  is  of  the  connection  of  ethics 
with  one  phasis  of  the  evolution-theory  that  I  now 
propose  to  speak.  I  doubt  whether  the  extreme 
evolutionists  can  be  said  to  have  any  system  of 
morals ;  for  with  them  the  moral  faculties  are 
physical  instincts,  and  nothing  more  ;  but  we 
want  to  know  how  they  treat  these  instincts,  and 
what  they  make  of  them. 

Permit  me.  at  the  outset,  to  state  my  own  posi- 
tion with  regard  to  the  evolution-theory.  I  have 
no  objection  to  it  on  theological  grounds,  and,  still 
more,  as  in  contrast  with  the  old  belief  in  specific 
creation,  I  regard  it  as  embodying  the  probable 
truth  as  to  the  lower  orders  of  organized  being, 
though  it  seems  to  me  questionable  whether  it  is 

249 


250  HEDONISM. 

applicable  in  part,  and  certain  that  it  is  not  so  in 
its  entireness,  to  man.  Yet  if  one  sees  ample 
reason  for  saying  u  to  the  worm,  i  Thou  art  my 
mother  and  my  sister,'  "  I  cannot  gainsay  him  on 
any  theological  or  Christian  ground.  As  a  matter 
of  taste,  I  greatly  prefer  the  genealogy  too  long  to 
cite  in  full,  which  has  for  its  ultimate  links, 
"  Which  was  the  son  of  Adam,  which  was  the  son 
of  God."  But  if  I  am  compelled  on  adequate 
physiological  grounds  to  trace  my  parentage  back 
through  a  line  of  ambitious  apes,  frogs  of  ad- 
vanced intelligence,  and  aspiring  tadpoles,  to  ho- 
mogeneous specks  of  protoplasm,  I  shall  cling  with 
only  the  stronger  confidence  to  the  last  link, 
"  Which  was  the  son  of  God ;  "  for  I  know  that 
nothing  short  of  omnipotence  could  give  birth, 
growth,  flowering,  and  fruitage  to  such  an  ances- 
tral tree.  Moreover,  if  self-consistency  should 
compel  me  to  derive  all  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
"  according  to  the  flesh  "  from  such  a  line  of  pro- 
genitors, I  should  be  only  the  more  imperatively 
compelled  to  own  in  the  divineness  of  his  human- 
ity the  "  Lord  from  heaven."  But,  leaving  man's 
spiritual  nature  aside,  —  when  I  contemplate  the 
evolution  of  the  universe  —  suns  and  systems,  in- 
organic being,  organized  life,  animals,  and,  it  may 
be,  the  human  body  too  —  from  pristine  star-dust  or 
star-mist  the  first  thought  that  suggests  itself  is 


TUE  EVOLUTION-THEORY,  NOT  PROVED.     251 

that  of  a  more  profound  sense  of  Almightiness 
and  of  Infinite  Wisdom  than  was  ever  forced  upon 
me  by  the  popular  cosmogony,  and  it  is  only  with 
enhanced  fervor  that  I  rehearse  the  Apocalyptic 
song,  "  Great  and  marvellous  are  thy  works,  Lord 
God  Almighty." 

Yet  we  must  not  forget  that  the  evolution- 
theor}',  though  not  disproved,  is  not  proved,  and 
perhaps  does  not  admit  of  absolute  proof.  All 
that  we  can  say  of  it  is,  that  it  is  an  admirable 
working  theory  for  the  investigation  of  nature. 
But  it  must  be  confessed,  first,  that  there  are  in  the 
alleged  chain  of  development  missing  links,  and 
many  series  of  continuous  missing  links,  some  of 
which  may,  however,  yet  be  discovered,  and  add 
new  weight  of  proof  to  the  theory  ;  and,  secondly, 
that  there  seems  no  reason  why  the  several  thou- 
sand years  of  authentic  human  history  should  not 
have  witnessed  phenomena  of  the  same  order  with 
those  that  preceded  the  birth  of  history.  That  the 
present  tendency  of  scientific  belief  is  in  this  di- 
rection is  no  argument ;  for  science  has  repeatedly 
gone  off  with  the  fullest  assurance  on  a  false  scent, 
and  we  have  no  more  reason  to  place  undoubting 
confidence  in  the  theories  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury than  in  those  of  the  seventeenth.  There  is 
a  broad  difference  between  the  comparatively  lit- 
tle that  science  has  actually  discovered  and  the 


252  UEDONISM. 

inferences  from  that  little  that  are  extended  over 
realms  of  fact  and  being  of  which  there  is  not 
now,  and  perhaps  can  never  be,  clear  and  accurate 
knowledge. 

I  hardly  need  say  that  the  evolutionists  are  di- 
vided, as  to  supersensual  conditions,  facts,  and 
phenomena,  into  two  classes.  Those  of  one  class 
believe  that  all  organic  being,  man  included,  has 
been  evolved  from  homogeneous  protoplasm,  but 
maintain  that  man  has,  in  addition  to  what  is  of 
earthly  extraction,  a  spiritual  nature,  with  corre- 
sponding relations  and  affinities,  and  that  God  not 
only  is,  but  is  in  a  certain  sense  and  measure  cog- 
nizable by  the  human  soul.  Darwin,  I  think, 
never  failed  to  admit,  and  to  recognize  with  rever- 
ence, the  being  of  a  personal  God.  There  are  cer- 
tainly in  his  works  many  passages  that  can  have 
no  other  possible  meaning  than  this.  Asa  Gray, 
who,  as  I  suppose,  is  now  acknowledged  to  be  the 
chief  expositor  of  evolutionism,  is  not  only  a  the- 
ist,  but  a  Christian  believer,  and  a  devout  member 
of  a  strictly  orthodox  church.  Men  of  this  class 
do  not  of  necessity  have  a  peculiar  system  of  eth- 
ics. They  may  or  may  not  have  one.  There  is 
no  reason  why  they  may  not  ascribe  the  phenom- 
ena of  man's  moral  being  to  supra-material  causes. 

But  many  of  the  best  known  evolutionists  are 
agnostics.     Atheists   they  would   not   call   them- 


PLEASURE,  AN  INSTINCTIVE  AIM.        253 

selves.  There  may  be  a  God,  for  aught  they 
know ;  but  they  have  not  been  able  to  discover 
Mm  by  the  microscope  or  the  scalpel,  and  it  would 
be  very  strange  if  they  could.  Their  philosophy 
is  complete  without  him.  They  know  how  the 
present  universe  came  to  be  what  and  as  it  is. 
They  can  account  on  their  theory  for  every  thing 
that  comes  under  the  cognizance  of  their  senses, 
and  they  are  not  willing  to  believe  that  there 
exists  any  thing  of  which  the  senses  cannot  take 
cognizance.  It  is  their  system  —  or  substitute  for 
a  system  —  of  ethics  that  is  now  before  us. 

Pleasure,  they  say,  is  the  instinctive  aim  of 
every  sentient  being.  It  was  the  aim  of  man's 
brute  ancestry,  which,  as  they  rose  in  the  scale 
of  being,  were  able  to  plan  more  intelligently  for 
the  procuring  of  pleasurable  and  the  avoidance 
of  painful  sensations  than  at  earlier  stages  of 
progress.  At  first,  man  can  have  had  no  knowl- 
edge or  sense  of  the  ulterior  consequences  of  his 
acts.  But  experience  at  length  taught  him  that 
certain  acts  which  gave  immediate  pleasure  were 
followed  by  much  more  than  the  pleasure's  worth 
of  pain,  and  that  there  were  pains,  and  especially 
labors,  not  pleasurable  in  themselves,  which  were 
followed  by  much  more  than  their  counterbalance 
of  pleasure.  The  habits  of  mature  and  foreseeing 
men  and  women  gradually  conformed  themselves 


254  HEDONISM. 

to  these  discoveries ;  and  there  thus  grew  up  an 
unwritten  code  of  sanitary  and  self-protective 
rules  of  living,  which  were  observed  by  persons 
who  had  a  judicious  regard  for  their  own  perma- 
nent well-being,  were  inculcated  on  children,  and 
in  some  particulars  were  enforced  on  the  commu- 
nity by  the  governing  powers.  The  acts  thus 
enjoined  were  deemed  good  in  the  same  sense  in 
which  sunshine  or  a  timely  rain  is  good ;  and  the 
omission  of  them,  or  conduct  opposed  to  them,  was 
deemed  bad  in  the  same  sense  in  which  a  pesti- 
lence or  a  famine  is  bad.  In  fine,  the  ultimate 
and  only  meaning  of  good  and  bad  as  applied  to 
conduct,  and  to  habitual  conduct,  which  is  charac- 
ter, is  precisely  the  same  sense  which  they  bear 
when  applied  to  unconscious  objects  or  agencies. 

But  this  is  not  all.  In  the  lower  forms  of  ani- 
mal life,  there  is  no  need  of  parental  care  for  the 
preservation  of  species.  The  production  is  so 
large,  that  only  a  small  proportion  of  the  young 
are  needed  to  replenish  the  stock ;  while  the  con- 
ditions of  life  are  so  simple  that  parental  aid  or 
oversight  would  be  superfluous.  The  more  ad- 
vanced types  of  animals  are  less  productive ;  and 
the  young  need  for  short  periods  nourishment 
from,  or  through  the  agency  of,  the  parent.  The 
perception  of  this  need  gives  birth  to  the  instinct 
for  its  supply.     The  ape-mother  finds  her  young, 


PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY.  255 

for  a  time,  nearly  as  dependent  on  her  as  those  of 
her  savage  human  descendant  will  be  on  their 
mother.  The  instinct  grows  to  meet  the  demand 
made  upon  it.  When  the  human  race  has  so  far 
advanced  that  the  child  needs  clothing  and  train- 
ing, the  parent  not  only  sees  this  increasing  de- 
mand, but  feels  the  instinctive  prompting  to  meet 
it.  Growing  dependence  creates  an  ever-increas- 
ing intimacy  of  relation ;  and  with  this,  parental 
love  is  developed  in  a  way  analogous  to  that  in 
which  home-love  is  formed  from  living  long  in  one 
home,  or  in  which  one  becomes  attached  in  feeling 
to  any  oft-recurring  association,  or  posture  of  cir- 
cumstances, or  mode  of  living.  With  this  feeling, 
the  parent's  aim  is  to  preserve  the  child's  life,  and 
to  prepare  him  to  receive  the  maximum  of  pleas- 
urable sensations  that  his  life  can  yield.  This  is 
what  good  nursing  and  good  training  mean  and 
accomplish ;  and  a  good  parent  is  good  simply  as 
the  medium  of  procuring  for  the  child's  life,  as  a 
whole,  an  aggregate  of  pleasurable  sensations  and 
experiences  which  could  not  have  accrued  to  him 
under  nurture  of  a  different  type. 

Another  stage  of  human  development  is  reached 
as  man  grows  into  a  knowledge  of  the  relations  of 
human  society  around  him  to  his  own  comfortable 
being.  Mutual  antagonism  is  the  primitive  state 
of  society,  inasmuch  as  every  man   is   liable   to 


256  HEDONISM. 

crave  whatever  possession  or  advantage  any  other 
man  may  have  acquired.  But  mutual  hostility 
and  annoyance  must  have  cost  each  member  of 
society  much  more  than  they  could  gain  for  him ; 
and  the  discovery  must  have  been  made  at  an 
early  period  in  human  history,  that  the  laiastz 
faire,  the  "  let  alone "  system,  was  a  means  of 
securing  the  possession  of  pleasurable  objects  in 
hand,  and  of  avoiding  fear,  discomfort,  and  pain. 
Thus  there  grew  up  the  habit  of  armed,  and  gradu- 
ally of  unarmed,  neutrality  and  non-interfereuce 
among  neighbors  and  fellow-tribesmen,  and  peace 
came  to  be  regarded  as  good,  because  it  was  found 
essential  to  the  maximum  of  pleasure  and  the 
minimum  of  pain ;  while  war,  which  was  and  still 
is  natural,  and  to  which  the  native  instincts  still 
have  frequent  recourse,  was  acknowledged  to  be 
bad,  because  it  was  found  to  diminish  pleasures, 
and  to  multiply  pains. 

In  lapse  of  time,  the  interchange  of  mutual 
kindnesses  was  found  to  multiply  pleasures  and  to 
diminish  pains ;  and  thus  beneficence  came  to  be 
regarded  as  good,  simply  because  it  blessed  the 
giver  by  insuring  ample  return.  Sympathetic 
relations  grew  up  from  this  experience.  As  there 
is  more  pleasure  than  pain  in  almost  every  human 
life,  and  as  pain  is  lightened  when  shared,  it  grad- 
ually came  to  be  perceived  that  mutual  fellow- 


VIRTUE,  PLEASURE-YIELDING.  257 

feeling  added  largely  to  each  one's  pleasures  by 
participation  in  the  pleasures  of  others,  while  each 
for  the  pain  of  sharing  in  the  griefs  of  others  was 
fully  remunerated  by  the  sympathy  that  lightened 
his  own  burden  in  the  stress  of  pain  or  grief.  Be- 
neficence, with  its  whole  train  of  virtues,  graces, 
and  amenities,  thus  became  good,  as  a  multiplier 
of  pleasures,  and  a  lightener  of  pains. 

There  is,  according  to  this  theory,  no  intrinsic 
quality  in  the  acts  called  virtuous  that  could  make 
them  preferable,  did  they  not  insure  a  preponder- 
ance of  pleasure.  The  opposite  acts,  if  they  on 
the  whole  yielded  more  pleasure,  would  hold  the 
place  of  virtues.  But  society  demands  of  its  in- 
dividual members  the  acts  and  habits  which  will 
yield  to  society  the  largest  amount  of  pleasure, 
and  this  demand  is  all  that  there  is  in  what  moral- 
ists call  the  stress  or  urgency  of  duty.  Duty  has 
no  meaning,  as  expressing  what  is  due  to  any  be- 
ing or  object  outside  of  one's  self.  But  one  owes 
to  himself  his  own  happiness,  which  he  forfeits  un- 
less he  practises  what  are  commonly  called  vir- 
tues. Bain  expressly  says  that  external  authority, 
enforced  by  penalty  or  punishment,  is  the  sole 
ground  of  obligation  ;  and  John  Stuart  Mill  main- 
tains that  the  fear  of  pain  alone  can  create  the 
sense  of  obligation  implied  in  the  word  "  ought " 
and  in  kindred  terms.     Thus,  the  proper  mode  of 


258  HEDONISM. 

impressing  a  sense  of  obligation  has  its  type  in  the 
story  in  the  Book  of  Judges,  in  which  it  is  said  that 
Gideon  "  took  thorns  of  the  wilderness  and  briers, 
and  with  them  he  taught  the  men  of  Succoth." 
Our  fathers,  a  century  ago,  when  the  sternest  do- 
mestic discipline  was  in  fashion,  were  certainly  in 
advance  of  their  time  in  their  realistic  mode  of 
enforcing  obligation  by  the  free  and  vigorous  use 
of  the  rod;  and  I  am  surprised  that  evolutionists 
do  not  recommend  the  revival  of  ancestral  meth- 
ods. 

Conscience,  according  to  this  theory,  is  entirely 
factitious.  It  is,  in  great  part,  hereditary  ;  for  in 
a  family,  habits  of  conduct,  when  general  and  long 
continued,  modify  the  structure  of  the  brain  and 
the  nervous  organism,  so  that  the  child  has  a  native 
propensity  to  do  what  his  ancestors  have  done ; 
and  there  is  a  disturbance  of  cerebral  action,  a 
flow  of  nervous  fluid  or  force  in  opposite  direc- 
tions at  the  same  time,  if  he  does  what  his  ances- 
tors have  not  done,  or  omits  doing  in  fit  time  and 
way  what  they  have  done.  Still  further,  if  his 
father  and  his  ancestors  have  acted  counter  to 
their  better  proclivities,  and  have  had  in  conse- 
quence this  disturbed  nervine  circulation,  he  may 
inherit  equally  their  disposition  to  do  or  to  omit 
doing  and  the  interior  disturbance  consequent 
upon  it.    Race-characteristics  also  have  their  coun- 


THE  GENESIS   OF  RELIGION.  259 

terpart  in  brain  and  nerve ;  and  he  who  acts  other- 
wise than  they  would  prompt,  suffers  in  brain  and 
nerve  for  his  dissent  from  his  race.  But  this,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  is  a  physical  suffering.  It  has  no 
more  of  what  most  persons  call  a  moral  element 
in  it  than  dyspepsia,  to  which  in  many  particulars 
it  bears  a  close  analogy. 

What  is  called  conscience  results,  also,  in  part, 
from  the  observation  of  what  is  approved  or  dis- 
approved by  parents,  by  society,  by  mankind  in 
general.  In  the  direction  of  their  approval,  the 
nerve-force  is  well  balanced  and  untroubled  ; 
while  it  is  disturbed  and  made  abnormal  by  acts 
which  they  disapprove.  Were  the  habits  of  so- 
ciety such  as  we  call  immoral,  the  physical  con- 
science would  be  in  their  favor.  If  it  be  not  a 
myth  that  the  Spartan  boys  were  educated  to 
steal,  and  received  the  highest  praise  for  stealing 
adroitly,  it  would  have  been  the  honest  boy  that 
had  the  troubled  conscience. 

This  theory,  of  course,  dispenses  with  religious 
sanctions.  Religion  is  a  development  of  fear. 
Fear  prolonged  deepens  into  awe.  Awe  of  things 
distant,  grand,  immense,  rises  into  reverence. 
These  sentiments  were  originally  felt  for  the 
whole  realm  of  the  unknown,  and  for  whatever 
was  mysterious  or  unknown  in  objects  partly 
known.      Thus  religion,  in  its   rude   beginnings, 


260  HEDONISM. 

when  man  was  profoundly  ignorant  of  all  things, 
attached  itself  to  every  object.  But  as  man's 
knowledge  advanced,  the  mysterious  receded,  and 
had  for  its  objects  of  dread  and  awe  things  either 
incomprehensible  or  beyond  human  control ;  and 
as  even  these  gradually  became  the  objects  either 
of  accurate  knowledge  or  of  plausible  hypothesis, 
religion  changed  its  ground  to  an  imaginary  realm 
of  being,  wherein  were  the  still  unknown  and  un- 
imagined  causes  even  of  familiar  objects  and  phe- 
nomena. But  polytheism  was  still  inevitable  ;  for 
nature  was  full  of  contrasts,  antagonisms,  con- 
flicts, indicating  separate  and  even  discordant 
divinities.  These  gods,  having  finite  natures  and 
human  passions,  could  be  appeased  and  flattered 
by  worship,  and  propitiated  by  offerings.  Hence 
the  entire  paraphernalia  of  images,  shrines,  tem- 
ples, priests,  and  sacrifices.  Not  till  the  harmo- 
nies of  nature  were  discovered,  and  glimpses  were 
obtained  of  the  cosmos  as  a  whole,  did  monothe- 
ism begin  to  enter  timidly  and  tentatively  into 
the  speculations  of  a  few  far-seeing  philosophers, 
still  scorned  and  scouted  by  the  multitude.  But 
more  frequently,  especially  in  the  East,  even  with 
advanced  philosophers,  monotheism  recoiled  before 
the  unsolvable  problem  of  evil.  Hence  the  dual- 
ism —  the  tokens  of  which  still  linger  within  the 
precincts  of  Christianity  —  which  shares  omnipo- 


THE  EVOLUTION-THEORY  OF  MORALS.      261 

tence  between  rival  and  opposing  divinities,  Or- 
muzd  and  Ahriman,  God  and  Satan,  the  supremely 
good  and  the  supremely  malevolent.  A  still 
higher  philosophy  expels  both  from  the  realm  of 
thought.  The  innate  power  of  combination  and 
development  in  primitive  atoms  is  sufficient  to  ac- 
count for  all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe. 
Given  the  original  nebulous  world-mist  (how  that 
came  into  being,  these  philosophers  do  not  pretend 
to  know),  given  the  world-mist  and  a  past  eter- 
nity, self-organization  in  the  lapse  of  ages  was  in- 
evitable. When  this  is  clearly  seen,  man  will  be 
ultimately  emancipated  from  religious  belief  into 
full  faith  in  the  omnipotence  of  automatic  nature. 
This  happy  condition  has  as  yet  been  reached 
only  by  a  few  precursors  of  the  race,  —  prophets 
they,  destined  to  be  the  fathers  of  a  new  era  of 
a  philosophy  wholly  material  and  terrestrial, 
which  will  believe  only  what  it  can  see,  handle, 
analyze,  and  label,  and  which  will  in  due  time 
extend  its  sway  over  the  entire  realm  of  things 
seen,  and  will  spurn  the  existence  of  the  unseen 
as  the  superstition  and  fable  of  ages  of  darkness 
and  ignorance. 

The  most  plausible  argument  for  the  evolution- 
ist-theory of  morals  is  that  it  seems  to  correspond 
closely  with  certain  obvious  and  well-known  facts 
of  observation   and   experience.     What  is  called 


262  HEDONISM. 

virtue  is  undoubtedly  productive  of  a  preponder- 
ance of  pleasure,  and  a  perfectly  virtuous  world 
would  be  a  perfectly  happy  world.  On  the  other 
hand  —  it  is  urged  by  the  evolutionists  —  were 
not  virtue  the  surest  way  to  happiness,  it  would  be 
unfavorable  even  to  the  continued  existence  of  the 
race ;  for  it  is  only  by  a  preponderance  of  pleas- 
urable sensations  that  life  is  made  endurable  and 
desirable,  while  under  adverse  conditions  the  race 
would  gradually  die  out.  Thus,  were  not  virtue 
necessarily  pleasure-yielding,  the  prevalence  of  vir- 
tue would  be  fatal.  This  statement  of  the  case  is 
not  entirely  true;  for  it  has  been  found  that 
when,  from  other  causes  than  virtue,  life  becomes 
hardly  worth  living,  the  rate  of  growth  for  the 
population  is  increased,  in  the  absence  of  all  pru- 
dential checks  upon  early  and  improvident  mar- 
riages. But  these  philosophers  are  right  in  saying 
that  virtue  is  pre-eminently  pleasure-yielding;  and 
there  are  two  reasons  why  it  must  be  so,  even 
though  it  have  intrinsic  properties  of  its  own,  en- 
tirely independent  of  its  capacity  to  yield  pleas- 
ure. In  the  first  place,  what  is  virtuous  is  fitting, 
and  we  should  antecedently  expect  that  the  fitting 
would  yield  more  pleasure  than  the  unfitting.  Sec- 
ondly, if  the  Supreme  Being  himself  recognizes 
the  fitting  as  the  Right  in  his  administration  of 
the   universe,   his   providence   cannot   but    favor 


THE  MORAL   FACULTY  IN  MAN.  263 

those   who  make  the  same  choice  and  obey  the 
same  law  with  himself. 

But  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  there  is  in 
man  a  moral  faculty,  peculiar  to  him,  native  in 
him,  and  not  to  be  traced,  even  in  its  rudimentary 
forms,  in  the  beasts  that  else  approach  the  most 
nearly  to  him.  We  discern  in  these  beasts  no 
sense  of  the  intrinsic  fitness  of  things.  We  must 
admit  that  they  have  general  ideas,  and  are  there- 
fore capable,  in  a  certain  sense,  of  abstraction.  A 
horse  can  evidently  practise  the  logical  processes 
of  induction  and  deduction  sufficiently  to  know  as 
a  stable  a  building  that  he  sees  for  the  first  time. 
But  we  have  no  proof  that  any  of  these  animals 
have  ideas  corresponding  to  other  than  material 
objects.  We  can  detect  in  them  no  traits  or 
tokens  of  moral  self-consciousness.  They  seem  to 
have  no  original  sense  of  right  and  wrong  as  qual- 
ities of  acts;  and  with  them  so  far  have  all  symp- 
toms of  a  moral  nature  been  wanting  in  the  higher 
stages  of  development,  that  man's  reputed  nearest 
kinsman,  the  monkey,  were  he  deemed  a  subject 
for  moral  characterization,  would  be  regarded  as 
totally  and  unredeemably  depraved.  Of  all  the 
beasts  with  which  man  is  ever  brought  into  close 
relations,  this  creature  is  the  very  one  on  whose 
honesty,  good  behavior,  and  trustworthiness  he 
places  the  least  dependence.     Nor  in  beasts  of  the 


264  HEDONISM. 

best  nature  and  the  most  pliant  susceptibility  of 
training  do  habits  that  have  almost  a  moral  aspect 
leave  any  permanent  traces  in  the  character  of  the 
race.  Take  the  descendant  of  a  long  line  of  those 
noble  St.  Bernard  dogs  that  have  been  employed 
for  centuries  in  the  most  humane  services,  and 
give  him  to  a  brutal  owner,  —  it  will  require  but  a 
month  or  two  to  make  him  as  savage  as  his  mas- 
ter, ready  to  spring  at  the  throat  of  the  transient 
wayfarer,  or  to  bear  a  gleeful  part  in  any  act  of 
lawless  depredation,  and  he  will  show  as  much 
self-complacency  in  so  doing  as  his  ancestors  ever 
did  in  drawing  a  benighted  traveller  from  a  snow- 
drift. Nay,  give  one  of  these  beasts  to  a  Christian 
gentleman,  who  will  train  him  in  all  humane 
and  courteous  ways,  if  there  be  a  flock  of  sheep 
within  running  distance,  he  will  slink  off  by  night, 
and  slay,  not  one  lamb  for  food,  but  as  many  as 
he  can  kill,  in  mere  wanton  sport.  Docility  and 
obedience  are  the  nearest  approach  to  morality 
that  any  beast  has  ever  made,  and  there  are  never 
any  tokens  of  relenting  or  recalcitration  under 
any  mode  of  training  or  type  of  required  service. 
There  are,  in  the  next  place,  facts  in  human  na- 
ture and  history  for  which  it  is  impossible  to  ac- 
count on  the  theory  that  pleasure  is  man's  sole 
good,  and  pleasure-seeking  his  highest  aim,  —  a 
theory  to  which  I  will  give  the  name  by  which  it 


THE  PARENTAL  RELATION.  265 

is  often  called,  hedonism,1  from  the  Greek  ffiovrj, 
pleasure,  I  cannot  see  that  this  theory  accounts 
for  parental  love,  even  in  beasts,  still  less,  in 
human  beings.  It  is,  indeed,  necessary  that  the. 
higher  races  of  animals  should  be  cared  for ;  but 
the  care  is  in  a  large  part  pain,  and  beings  whose 
very  nature  is  more  than  all  things  else  pleasure- 
loving  and  pleasure-seeking  could  hardly  be  ex- 
pected to  court  pain.  The  theory  signally  fails  as 
to  birds,  when  we  consider  the  foreseeing  labor  of 
nest-building  for  the  sole  purpose  of  sheltering  the 
young  that  are  to  be,  the  untiring  vigilance  of  the 
male  and  the  unwearied  patience  of  the  female 
bird  during  the  incubation,  and  the  judicious  as 
well  as  painstaking  choice  and  preparation  of  food 
for  their  progeny.  All  this  looks  like,  not  merely 
mind  and  purpose,  but  a  love  that  even  anticipates 
its  object.  It  is  instinct  indeed,  in  a  certain  sense 
blind  instinct,  but,  according  to  the  hedonic  theory, 
by  no  means  a  natural  development.  All  that  we 
can  say  is,  in  the  spirit  of  the  old  classic  dictum, 
Deus  est  anima  brutorum,  "  God  is  the  soul  of  the 
brutes." 

To  pass  to  the  human  parent,  by  the  theory  of 

1  A  terra  first  employed  to  denote  the  philosophy  of  Aristip- 
pus  and  the  Cyrenaic  school,  according  to  which  virtue  has  no 
characteristics  of  its  own,  but  is  to  he  sought  and  valued  only  for 
the  pleasure  which  it  gives,  pleasure  being  man's  sole  aim. 


266  HEDONISM. 

hedonism  parental  hatred  would  be  inevitable. 
The  first  impulse  of  hedonism  would  be  to  put 
the  child  out  of  being ;  or  if  there  were  some  hesi- 
tation at  the  thought  of  infanticide,  the  minute, 
incessant,  annoying  labor  which  the  child's  neces- 
sities crave  could  create  only  disgust  and  abhor- 
rence ;  for  enforced  labor  is  pain,  and  whatever 
gives  pain  is,  on  the  hedonic  theory,  an  object  of 
dread  and  hatred.  Even  were  it  contended  that 
the  mother's  intimate  relation  to  the  child  would 
make  her  love  her  offspring  as  offspring,  as  virtu- 
ally a  part  of  her  own  being,  no  such  consideration 
could  account  for  the  father's  love,  care,  and  self- 
sacrifice.  In  fine,  the  theory  under  discussion 
reverses  all  conceivable  conditions.  That  love 
should  prompt  painstaking  labor,  and  make  it 
appear  necessary,  seems  and  is  perfectly  natural. 
But  that  the  necessity  of  preserving  the  species 
should  prompt  beasts  at  a  high,  or  man  at  a  low, 
stage  of  development  to  painstaking  labor  which 
serves  no  selfward  end,  and  that  this  labor  should 
generate  love,  is  what  we  can  hardly  conceive  of 
in  the  nature  of  things,  if  that  nature  be  sponta- 
neous evolution,  and  not  a  Supreme  Will.  More- 
over, that  parental  affection  is  not  co-ordinate  with 
the  degree  of  physical  and  mental  development, 
and  is  therefore  not  natural  in  the  merely  physi- 
cal sense,  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  it  has 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.     267 

been  at  a  very  low  grade  in  countries  and  times 
of  advanced  civilization  and  refinement,  so  that 
St.  Paul  hardly  exaggerates  the  known  condition 
of  domestic  life  in  Rome  itself,  and  in  the  age  im- 
mediately post-Augustan,  when  he  speaks  of  the 
heathen  as  "  without  natural  affection."  Infanti- 
cide was  then  common  in  the  Roman  Empire,  and 
was  thought  no  crime ;  while,  in  the  ages  deemed 
retrograde  in  civilization  and  refinement  that  suc- 
ceeded the  Christiauization  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
we  have  reason  to  believe  that  children's  lives 
were  held  sacred. 

The  theory  of  hedonism  is,  I  cannot  but  think, 
false  to  the  inmost  consciousness  of  those  who  pro- 
fess it.  If  one  of  them  would  recall  his  earliest 
remembered  self-consciousness,  he  would  find  that 
he  had  a  sense  of  the  Right  before  he  began  to 
anticipate  any  other  than  the  immediate  physical 
consequences  of  his  acts ;  that  he  felt  it  wrong  to 
lie  before  he  knew  whether  lying  would  do  him 
good  or  harm  ;  that  the  sense  of  the  pleasurable 
and  that  of  the  Right,  though  generally  coinci- 
dent in  their  objects,  have  in  themselves  been 
always  separate,  and  sometimes  divergent ;  and 
that,  except  when  he  is  reasoning  on  the  sub- 
ject, he  habitually  thinks  of  the  rightness  or 
the  wrongness  of  acts,  without  thinking  of  their 
pleasure -yielding    qualities,    and,    conversely,   of 


268  HEDONISM. 

the  pleasurableness  of  objects,  without  thinking 
of  their  moral  bearing  or  character.  Moreover, 
there  is  an  inverse  proportion  between  the  in- 
tensity of  conscience  and  that  of  the  hedonic 
impulse.  In  little  children,  who,  if  they  love 
pleasure,  have  not  yet  learned  how  to  seek  it  for 
themselves,  conscience  is  often  exceedingly  quick 
and  tender,  —  often  so  in  a  painful  degree,  which 
ought  not  to  be  the  case  with  an  hedonic  faculty. 
Among  adults,  too,  it  is  the  least  pleasure-seeking 
who  are  the  most  conscientious ;  and  there  is 
never  brought  to  the  tribunal  of  conscience  the 
question  of  pleasurable  or  painful,  but  only  that 
of  right  or  wrong,  without  reference  to  conse- 
quences. So  far  as  we  can  trace  the  sense  of  right 
back  to  its  source,  it  certainly  seems  to  be  innate ; 
and  the  distinction  between  the  Right  and  the 
Wrong  would  not  seem  to  us,  constituted  as  we 
are,  otherwise  than  clear  and  reasonable,  were 
they  equally  pleasure-yielding.  On  the  supposi- 
tion that  a  man  could  be  persistently  false,  treach- 
erous, intemperate,  or  unchaste,  and  be  therefore 
none  the  less  happy  in  this  world  or  in  the  world 
to  come,  there  would  still  remain  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  moral  agents  precisely  the  same  feeling 
that  now  exists  as  to  the  intrinsic  wrongness  of 
these  vices,  and  the  intrinsic  rightness  of  the  oppo- 
site virtues.     Probably  there  is  no  more  distinct 


PRE-EMINENT   VIRTUE.  269 

consciousness  of  the  intrinsic  difference  between 
right  and  wrong  than  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
find  pleasure  only  in  the  wrong,  and  regard  virtue 
as  uncompensated  self-denial.  They  know  that 
there  is  a  radical  difference  between  the  Right  and 
the  pleasure-yielding ;  and  it  is  because  there  is  no 
natural  or  intrinsically  necessary  connection  be- 
tween the  two,  that  they  are  so  blind  to  their 
general  coincidence  in  their  methods  and  objects 
under  the  ordering  of  a  Providence  both  right- 
loving  and  joy-giving. 

To  pass  to  another  head  of  argument,  there  is 
an  entire  upper  realm  of  virtue,  in  which  hedonism 
bears  and  can  bear  no  part.  There  are  many  self- 
restraints  and  self-denials,  not  required  even  by 
the  highest  hedonic  standard,  which  can  by  no  pos- 
sibility yield  any  selfward  revenue,  yet  in  which 
men  will  persist,  with  not  the  slightest  expectation 
of  pleasure  from  them.  There  are  philanthropists, 
patriots,  martyrs,  who  know  that  they  are  yielding 
up  every  thing  pleasurable  in  this  world,  yet  who 
shrink  not  from  the  severest  torments  and  the 
most  horrible  modes  of  death.  Nor  can  it  be 
said  that  it  is  the  hope  of  heavenly  happiness  that 
forms  their  inspiring  motive.  They  would  spurn 
indignantly  the  idea  of  purchasing  heaven  by 
earthly  doings  or  sacrifices  ;  and  except  where  the 
alternative  is  denial  of  one's  faith  or  martyrdom, 


270  HEDONISM. 

they  would  not  suppose  their  heavenly  happiness 
contingent  on  special,  unusual,  unrequired  modes 
or  acts  of  self-devotion.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the 
hope  of  heaven  often  bears  a  large  educational  part 
in  making  them  the  brave  men  that  they  are ;  but 
the  mere  love  of  pleasure,  or  quest  of  happiness, 
could  never  give  birth  to  these  exalted  virtues 
and  these  noble  characters.  Still  further,  not  only 
those  who  sacrifice  themselves  for  existing  institu- 
tions, interests,  and  faiths,  equally  the  pioneers 
in  moral  progress,  give  the  lie  to  the  hedonic  the- 
ory. They  plant  the  standard  in  advance  of  their 
brethren  at  the  risk,  when  not  of  life,  of  reputa- 
tion and  of  worldly  well-being.  The  foremost 
ranks,  like  the  forlorn  hope  of  an  army,  are  sacri- 
ficed for  the  victory  which  they  expect  that  not 
they  themselves,  but  their  successors  on  the  field, 
will  win. 

In  fine,  virtue,  in  its  highest  sense,  begins  where 
pleasure-seeking  ends.  This  I  think  that  we  shall 
see  the  more  clearly,  if  we  will  analyze  our  own 
consciousness  of  merit.  There  is,  you  will  un- 
doubtedly admit,  a  sense  of  merit  entirely  distinct 
from,  and  bearing  no  kindred  to,  the  sense  of  suc- 
cess in  pleasure-seeking.  When  you  have  per- 
formed a  dut}T,  your  consciousness  is  not,  "  I  have 
gained  a  new  pleasurable  sensation,"  but,  "  I  have 
done  what  I  ought  to  have  done."     Suppose  that 


THE  SOURCE  OF  RELIGION.  271 

your  life  were  so  mapped  out  before  you,  and  you 
so  wise,  that  you  could  plan  your  conduct  with  a 
single  eye  to  the  attainment  of  the  maximum  of 
pleasure,  and  there  were  not  an  item  of  that  con- 
duct which  was  not  right,  yet  if  you  pursued  that 
course  simply  and  solely  because  it  was  going  to 
give  you  the  maximum  of  pleasure,  would  not  the 
consciousness  of  merit  be  entirely  wanting?  and 
would  you  not  lack  the  very  thing  in  which  you 
really  take  more  pleasure  than  in  aught  else,  the 
ability  to  say  to  yourself,  "  I  have  done  right "  ? 
You  would  feel  that  there  could  be  no  merit  in 
doing  right  for  the  revenue  that  it  will  bring.  If 
virtue  is  really  the  offspring  of  selfishness,  then 
is  the  sun  the  child  of  Erebus,  and  the  moon  the 
daughter  of  Night. 

Religion,  too,  disowns  the  parentage  assigned 
to  it  by  the  evolutionists.  So  little  has  fear  to  do 
with  it,  that  it  may  be  said  to  be  hopefully  begun 
in  the  individual  soul  only  when  fear  ends.  In 
all  the  higher  forms  of  religious  consciousness  the 
element  of  terror  is  entirely  wanting.  It  is  equally 
wanting  in  the  initial  stages  of  judicious  religions 
culture.  There  is  no  purer  religion  than  in  the 
heart  of  the  child  whom  his  mother  has  taught  to 
love,  but  never  to  fear,  his  unseen  Father.  His 
only  thought  is  that  of  a  genial,  beneficent  pres- 
ence, of  which  his  mother  is  the  type.     He  prays 


272  HEDONISM. 

in  his  innocence  to  that  Father,  and  has  not  a 
doubt  that  his  prayer  is  heard  as  lovingly  as  it  is 
offered ;  and  no  shadow  of  dread  passes  over  his 
spirit  till  he  comes  into  contact  with  those  who 
make  religion  a  terror,  and  under  whose  influence 
his  religious  feelings,  so  far  from  being  quickened, 
are,  more  probably  than  not,  enfeebled  or  dissi- 
pated. 

These  higher  faculties,  the  moral  and  religions, 
are,  then,  if  of  brutal  parentage,  cut  off  from  their 
ancestral  tree,  and  show  no  token  of  their  lineage. 
They  manifestly  have  no  affinities  with  brute  in- 
stincts, and  cannot  by  any  possibility  have  been 
derived  from  proclivities  which  are  entirely  earth- 
ward, —  which  belong  only  to  beings  that  have 
their  destiny  rounded  off  in  this  world,  and  to 
man  solely  in  his  earth-limited  being. 

Carlyle  wrote  many  years  ago,  "  There  is  in 
man  a  higher  than  love  of  happiness :  he  can  do 
without  happiness,  and  instead  thereof  find  bless- 
edness." Spencer,  in  his  "  Data  of  Ethics,"  ridi- 
cules this  saying,  which  perhaps  is  not  logically 
accurate,  yet  is  profoundly  true  in  its  real  and 
only  possible  meaning.  What  Carlyle  calls  bless- 
edness is  undoubtedly  a  happy  state ;  but  it  is  a 
type  of  happiness  of  which  neither  the  desire  nor 
the  fruition  can  be  brought  within  the  range  of 
the  evolution  theory.     I  could  tell  you  of  suffer- 


HAPPINESS  IN  SUFFERING.  273 

ers  whom  I  have  known,  whom  I  still  know,  who 
have  been  for  years,  in  one  case  for  thirty-eight 
years,  deprived  of  the  power  of  locomotion  and  of 
self-help,  with  never  an  hour  of  undisturbed  sleep 
or  a  painless  moment,  and  with  no  hope  of  recov- 
ery ;  in  one  such  case  that  I  well  know,  the  priva- 
tions and  anxieties  of  extreme  poverty  are  added 
to  those  of  bodily  infirmity ;  and  these  sufferers 
have  been  among  the  happiest  of  persons.  It  has 
been  impossible  to  create  a  gloomy  atmosphere 
about  them ;  the  sad  have  been  made  cheerful  in 
their  presence  ;  and  a  settled  serenity  of  mien  and 
aspect  has  evinced  that  the  cheerfulness  in  the 
presence  of  friends  was  not  the  result  of  spas- 
modic effort,  but  the  fixed  habit  of  the  soul.  This 
is  a  happiness  or  blessedness  —  call  it  which  you 
please  —  which  shows  that  there  are  phenomena 
of  human  experience  for  which  physical  evolution 
will  not  account.  These  thoughts  of  peace,  these 
emotions  of  trust  and  gratitude  and  immortal 
hope,  cannot  have  their  origin  in  mere  sensation, 
which  in  some  of  these  cases  is  unceasing  torment, 
so  that  life  is  made  endurable  only  by  closed  and 
bandaged  eyes,  and  the  noiseless  tread  and  sub- 
dued voices  of  attendants ;  nor  yet  in  associations 
with  these  blurred  and  muffled  sensations ;  nor 
yet  in  the  remembrance  of  sensations,  which  in 
some  instances  have  from  infancy  or  early  youth 


271  IIEDONISM. 

been  more  or  less  painful ;  nor  yet  from  the  nerves 
themselves,  which  have  become  a  rack  of  incessant 
torture.  The  entire  realm  of  physical  nature  can 
have  made  no  contribution  to  the  happiness  of 
these  sufferers.  They  live  in  a  world  of  affections 
and  supersensual  experiences,  and  from  this  world 
are  poured  in  upon  their  strained  and  pain- 
stricken  nerves  the  emotions  that  make  their  life, 
and  peace,  and  joy. 

These  phenomena  do  not,  indeed,  belong  imme- 
diately to  the  department  of  ethics,  and  yet  they 
have  a  most  momentous  bearing  upon  it ;  for  they 
demonstrate  that  human  experience  has  a  hold  on 
a  supersensual  sphere  ;  that  it  is  susceptible  of 
affections  and  conditions  of  feeling  that  cannot  be 
brought  within  the  line  of  evolution,  and,  still 
more,  that  there  are  states  of  mind  or  soul  which 
so  far  transcend  the  pleasure  or  happiness  that 
can  be  evolved  from  physical  sources  and  by  the 
physical  organism,  that  the  sufferers  would  gladly 
buy  this  blessedness  at  the  cost  of  continued  suf- 
fering, and  would  not  resign  it  even  for  the  prom- 
ise of  perpetual  health  and  undecaying  vigor. 
Now,  it  is  in  this  region  —  not  of  necessity  in  its 
empyrean,  but  within  its  precincts  —  that  morality 
has  its  place.  If  man,  the  sufferer,  can  scorn  suf- 
fering for  a  higher  than  physical  joy,  man,  the 
doer,  is  equally  capable  of  spurning  pleasure  in 


REMEMBRANCES   OF  CHILDHOOD.  275 

the  discharge  of  duty,  —  of  incurring  even  what 
seems  to  him  evil  beyond  remedy,  that  he  may 
preserve  the  testimony  of  a  good  conscience. 
Moreover,  though  the  elevated  condition  of  reli- 
gious trust,  peace,  and  joy,  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
be  not  a  frequent  experience,  I  think  that  we  shall 
find  in  our  own  consciousness  that  in  all  virtuous 
conduct  there  is  experience  differing  from  this, 
not  in  kind,  but  in  degree.  Virtue,  the  hedonists 
say,  conduces  to  happiness.  Of  this  I  have  no 
doubt;  but  in  a  very  large  number  of  instances,  it 
is  pleasure-yielding  solely  because  it  is  virtue,  and 
but  for  its  property  of  Tightness  would  give  us  no 
pleasure  whatever. 

We  may  test  this  statement  by  the  remembered 
consciousness  of  our  early  childhood.  Did  we  not 
then  often  perform  very  wearisome  tasks  at  the 
bidding  of  our  parents,  go  on  their  errands  when 
we  might  have  been  on  the  playground,  and  put 
all  the  strength  that  we  had  into  such  assistance 
as  we  could  render  to  them  ?  And  were  we  not 
always  happy  in  thus  doing?  But  it  was  the 
Tightness  of  these  things  alone  that  made  them  a 
source  of  happiness.  They  were  not  things  that 
we  should  ever  have  thought  of  doing  in  the 
quest  of  pleasure.  Farther  on  in  life,  the  youth 
of  sound  principles  avoids  the  beginnings  of  evil, 
parts  company,  it  may  be,  from   more  agreeable 


276  HEDONISM. 

companions  than  are  left  to  him,  shuns  recreations 
and  indulgences  that  are  intensely  appetizing,  not 
because  he  is  afraid  of  pain  from  what  he  foregoes, 
or  because  he  doubts  —  however  much  reason 
there  might  be  for  his  doubting  —  that  he  could 
be  sufficiently  moderate  and  self-restraining  to 
prevent  all  unpleasant  consequences  from  cautious 
and  measured  transgressions  of  the  law  of  right, 
but  solely  because  what  he  shuns  is  not  right ; 
and  he  is  happy  in  making  his  wa}~s  clean,  and 
keeping  his  youth  undefiled,  not  because  such 
conduct  in  itself  yields  superior  pleasure,  but  be- 
cause its  rightness  does  make  him  immeasurably 
happier  than  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  whole  phys- 
ical universe  to  make  him.  He  has  made  himself 
a  citizen  of  the  supersensual  realm,  which  yields  a 
happiness  that  eludes,  because  it  transcends,  all 
physical  standards  of  measurement. 

In  like  manner,  all  along  in  life,  the  man  who 
means  to  do  his  duty  has  to  do  many  things  the 
opposite  of  which  would  yield  him  more  sensible 
pleasure,  and  very  many  more  things  the  omission 
of  which  would  conduce  to  his  ease,  comfort,  and 
enjoyment ;  but  they  make  him  immeasurably 
happier  than  he  could  be  made  by  omitting  them 
or  doing  their  opposite,  solely  because  he  feels 
their  rightness ;  and  he  knows  no  happiness  —  or 
blessedness  he  might  prefer  to  say,  notwithstand- 


THE  EIGHT,  THE  SOURCE  OF  HAPPINESS.     277 

ing  Spencer's  cavils  —  that  can  be  brought  into 
momentary  comparison  with  the  consciousness  of 
Tightness  in  his  lifeway,  and  with  the  thoughts 
and  purposes  that  give  the  trend  and  the  impel- 
ling force  to  this  lifeway. 

In  point  of  fact,  we  may  turn  the  tables  upon 
the  hedonists.  So  far  is  its  pleasure-yielding  ca- 
pacity from  constituting  the  Right,  that  the  Right 
by  mere  virtue  of  its  Tightness  is  the  supreme 
pleasure-yielder.  Still  further,  when  we  do  right 
for  the  good  that  will  come  to  us  from  it,  for  the 
income  that  it  will  bring  us,  we  forfeit  the  income  : 
for  the  Tightness  thus  motived  is  on  too  low  a 
plane  to  deserve  to  be  called  right.  It  is  only 
when  we  do  right  because  it  is  right,  that  we 
reap  what  is  called  in  Holy  Writ  "the  peaceable 
fruit  of  righteousness"  in  a  happiness  than  which 
we  can  desire  or  imagine  nothing  higher  or  better. 


LECTURE   XL 
THE  ETHICS   OF   THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

I  propose  to  give  you,  in  this  lecture,  some 
account  of  the  Stoic  philosophy  of  morals,  of  its 
founder,  its  principal  luminaries,  and  its  influence. 
I  single  out  this  from  other  ancient  systems  for 
special  description,  because  we  have  in  the  ethics 
of  the  Stoics  the  germ  and  partial  development  of 
the  moral  philosophy  which  underlies  all  modern 
systems  that  discriminate  right  from  expediency. 

The  founder  of  the  Stoic  school  was  Zeno,  a 
native  of  Cyprus,  who  came  to  Athens  about  820 
B.C.  He  lectured  in  the  arod  ttoiklXt),  or  u  painted 
porch,"  a  covered  walk  near  the  market-place ; 
and  this  gives  the  name  to  his  school.  He  was  a 
man  of  singular  simplicity,  uprightness,  and  purity. 
He  reached  an  advanced  age  in  sound  health  of 
body  and  mind ;  but  having  met  with  a  slight 
accident,  —  the  breaking  of  a  ringer,  —  he  took  this 
as  a  warning  of  Fate  that  his  work  was  over,  and, 
in  accordance  with  his  own  teaching,  killed  him- 
self, in  this  respect  leaving  an  example  which  was 

278 


ZENO.  270 

followed  with  sad  frequency  by  some  of  the  great- 
est and  best  of  his  disciples. 

According  to  his  system,  conformity  with  nature 
is  the  supreme  good ;  that  is,  conformity,  not  with 
one's  own  nature  alone,  but  with  the  nature  of 
the  universe.  This  conformity  is  virtue,  and  it  is 
happiness.  The  reason  is  the  faculty  by  which  it 
is  to  be  ascertained  what  nature  requires.  Wis- 
dom is,  therefore,  essential  to  virtue,  nay,  practi- 
cally, is  coincident  with  virtue  ;  for  it  is  impossible 
to  have  a  clear  knowledge,  a  vivid  perception, 
what  we,  in  our  common  speech,  term  a  realizing 
sense,  of  what  is  conformed  to  nature,  without  act- 
ing in  accordance  with  it.  The  perfectly  wise 
man,  then,  must  be  a  perfectly  good  man.  Just 
at  this  point  there  is  a  striking  parallelism,  yet 
with  a  difference,  between  Stoicism  and  Chris- 
tianity. The  Stoics  maintained  that  the  perfectly 
wise  man  had  not  made  his  appearance  upon  the 
earth.  They  denied  this  title  even  to  Zeno.  The 
Christian  ideal  has,  in  like  manner,  been  ap- 
proached by  unnumbered  aspirants,  realized  only 
in  Him  from  whose  life  it  is  drawn. 

Zeno  maintained  that  there  are  no  degrees  of 
good  or  of  evil  either  in  character  or  in  individual 
acts.  The  truly  wise  man  has  an  intuitive  knowl- 
edge of  the  right,  and  needs  no  teaching  other 
than  his  own.     He  who  is  not  wise  is  incapable  of 


280      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

the  right  as  such,  and  it  is  by  mere  chance  that  in 
conduct  he  sometimes  conforms  himself  to  nature. 
All  acts  not  wrought  by  a  truly  wise  man  are 
equally  bad.  Here  we  have  a  close  parallelism 
with  the  Calvinistic  dogma,  which  Genevan  in- 
fluence foisted  into  the  Articles  of  the  English 
Church,  in  the  words,  "  Works  done  before  the 
grace  of  Christ  and  the  inspiration  of  his  Spirit 
are  not  pleasant  to  God  ;  yea,  rather,  we  doubt  not 
but  they  have  the  nature  of  sin."  There  are, 
according  to  Zeno,  no  comparative  degrees  of 
moral  excellence. 

Pleasure,  it  was  maintained,  is  not  to  be  con- 
sidered as  a  good.  It  may  accompany  virtue,  not, 
however,  necessarily  or  always;  but  it  is  not  a 
motive  to  virtue.  Were  it  so,  virtue  would  be  its 
slave.  Virtue  and  pleasure  differ  in  essence. 
Pleasure  may  attend  immoral  conduct,  and  is  its 
most  frequent  motive.  Virtue  requires  labor,  and 
may  bring  loss,  pain,  and  suffering.  The  virtuous 
man  is  happy ;  but  his  happiness  is  rather  nega- 
tive than  positive.  It  consists  rather  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  freedom  and  the  just  equilibrium  of 
all  the  powers  and  the  affections  than  in  what  is 
commonly  termed  enjoyment.  He  who  is  in  any 
way  or  degree  dependent  on  outward  circum- 
stances cannot  be  happy ;  for  he  is  always  inse- 
cure.    But  he  whose  only  cherished  property  is 


UNIVERSAL   DEPRAVITY.  281 

the  consciousness  of  virtue,  is  perfectly  happy, 
because  he  cannot  be  moved  or  reached  by  any 
vicissitude  of  outward  fortune. 

The  highest  good,  that  is,  perfect  conformity  to 
nature,  is  a  law.  The  mere  perception  of  it  con- 
stitutes obligation.  Emotions,  whether  of  pleasure 
or  desire,  care  or  fear,  are  disturbing  forces,  befog- 
ging the  reason,  and,  therefore,  to  be  extirpated 
and  abjured.  The  wise  man  is  emotionless.  Pain 
he  must  endure  without  yielding  to  it.  Slander 
or  abuse  he  ought  not  to  feel,  for  it  cannot  affect 
the  substance  of  his  being.  He  has  no  vanity, 
and,  therefore,  he  can  be  neither  elated  by  honor 
nor  depressed  by  dishonor.  He  has  no  pity  for 
others ;  for  what  they  endure  would  be  to  him  of 
no  account.  How  can  he  have  compassion  for 
that  in  others  which  in  himself  he  would  not  feel  ? 

According  to  the  definition  that  has  been  given, 
virtue  is,  of  course,  one  and  indivisible.  The  sev- 
eral virtues  differ  not  in  their  nature,  but  are  only 
names  for  the  kinds  of  occasions  on  which  the  one 
virtue  is  to  be  exercised. 

From  what  has  been  said,  you  will  see  that  the 
doctrine  of  universal  human  depravity,  though 
commonly  called  Augustinian,  is  older  than  Chris- 
tianity. The  Stoics  regarded  all  men  as  naturally 
depraved,  and  those  of  them  who  admitted  the 
possible  existence  of  a  truly  wise  man  believed  in 


282      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

instantaneous  conversion.  Up  to  a  given  moment 
a  man  belonged  virtually  to  the  depraved  section 
of  the  human  race  :  at  that  moment  he  passed  into 
the  permanent  consciousness  of  sinlessness  and 
of  inability  to  sin.  Extreme  as  this  statement 
seems,  is  there  not  something  like  truth  in  it? 
Though  the  change  of  character  is  generally  grad- 
ual, must  there  not  be  in  the  consciousness  of 
every  one  who  has  been  addicted  to  evil,  a  crisis, 
almost  momentary,  when  the  scale  turns,  when  he 
virtually  says  to  himself,  "  I  will  henceforth  will 
only  what  God  wills  "  ?  The  error  of  the  Stoics 
was  in  accounting  wrong-doing  after  this  crisis  as 
impossible,  even  as  the  Christian  Perfectionists 
maintain  that  sin  after  sanctification  is  impossible. 
The  Stoics  also  believed  at  the  outset,  though 
some  of  their  great  teachers  afterward  thought 
differently,  that  the  wise,  and  therefore  perfect, 
man,  could  never  fall  away  from  his  estate  of 
perfect  wisdom,  —  a  doctrine  corresponding  to  the 
Calvinistic  dogma  of  the  perseverance  of  saints. 
You  will  mark  how  many  parallelisms  there  are 
between  Stoic  and  Calvinistic  dogmas,  making 
Calvinism  seem  almost  a  Christianized  Stoicism.1 

1  This  constitutes  no  objection  to  Calvinism.  If  I  were  a 
Calvinist,  I  should  find  confirmation  and  comfort  in  my  beliefs, 
as  I  do  with  regard  to  certain  great  principles  and  laws  of  ethics, 
in  their  seeming  to  be  part  of  God's  unwritten  revelation  to  the 
greatest  and  best  minds  and  souls  of  the  pre-Christian  ages. 


OBJECTS   OF  DESIRE.  283 

As  to  outward  objects  of  desire,  the  Stoics 
recognized  three  classes.  There  are,  first,  those 
which,  not  good  in  themselves,  may  be  auxiliary 
to  virtue,  as  health,  strength,  wealth,  social  posi- 
tion, and  the  like.  These,  while  not  to  be  sought 
as  ends,  are  not  to  be  spurned  as  means.  They 
are  to  be  prized,  yet  not  in  or  for  themselves,  but 
solely  because  they  multiply  opportunities  for  the 
exercise  of  virtue,  and  often  add  to  its  efficiency. 
Secondly,  there  are  objects  and  pursuits  which  are 
directly  contrary  to  nature ;  and  these  are,  of 
course,  to  be  shunned.  In  the  third  place,  there 
are  objects  and  pursuits  so  entirely  indifferent 
that  they  cannot  by  any  possibility  be  the  objects 
either  of  choice  or  of  antipathy.  Objects  of  the 
first  class,  while  they  are  never  to  be  coveted, 
when  possessed,  are  to  be  made  availing,  and  to  be 
resigned  whenever  they  offer  the  slightest  hinder- 
ance  to  the  pursuit  of  the  supreme  good. 

As  regards  society,  the  early  Stoics  attached 
very  little  importance  to  the  family  or  to  the 
state,  but  the  utmost  importance  to  the  solidarity 
of  the  race  and  to  the  fraternity  of  its  members. 
On  this  ground  they  advocated  the  humane  treat- 
ment of  slaves.  They  also  laid  intense  stress  on 
justice  in  all  its  forms,  and  on  mercy,  too,  not  as 
the  impulse  of  pity,  but  as  a  part  of  justice, — 
as  a  debt  which  man  owes  to  his  fellow-man. 


284      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

Passive  submission  to  destiny,  including  under 
that  head  not  only  what  we  term  the  acts  of 
Providence,  but  equally  human  tyranny,  oppres- 
sion, and  wrong-doing,  they  regarded  as  of  strict 
obligation,  with  two  exceptions,  namely,  first,  that 
it  is  a  wise  man's  duty  to  take  his  own  life  rather 
than  to  3'ield  to  unmerited  indignity  or  dishonor, 
and,  secondly,  that  it  is  a  wise  man's  privilege  to 
escape  in  the  same  way  from  irretrievable  calamity, 
incurable  disease,  or  the  failure  of  the  active 
powers  of  body  and  mind  inevitably  consequent 
upon  declining  years. 

Some  of  these  dogmas  were  modified  in  the 
lapse  of  time.  Degrees  of  demerit  were  recog- 
nized, and  thus,  virtually,  degrees  of  merit,  though 
still  the  perfectly  wise  man  alone  was  pronounced 
virtuous  in  the  highest  sense  ;  but  while  he  existed 
only  in  theory,  those  the  nearest  to  him  were 
deemed  abundantly  meritorious.  Then,  too,  there 
came  to  be  recognized  a  class  of  secondary  duties 
called  "common"  (communia),  also  "interme- 
diate "  (rnedia),  as  midway  between  the  perfect 
duties  of  which  only  the  wise  man  is  capable  and 
the  acts  that  are  absolutely  opposed  to  nature. 
These  secondary  duties  were  regarded  as  within 
the  competency  of  persons  not  perfectly  wise ; 
they  could  be  embodied  in  precepts,  and  incul- 
cated by  teachers ;  and  by  the  discharge  of  them 


CICERO'S   "DE  OFFICIIS."  285 

one  could  grow  into  the  condition  of  the  per- 
fectly wise.  For  the  performance  of  these  duties, 
men  deserved  to  be  characterized  as  good,  though 
not  as  wise  or  perfect.  Nor  did  the  later  Stoics 
treat  outward  goods  with  the  utter  disdain  with 
which  the  early  disciples  of  Zeno  affected  to 
regard  them ;  and  though  they  still  contended 
that  the  perfectly  wise  man  could  be  perfectly 
happy  without  them,  they  did  not  deny  their 
value,  when  rightfully  obtained,  as  factors  in  the 
happiness  of  those  who  made  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  perfect  wisdom.  These  modifications 
were  made  before  Stoicism  obtained  a  permanent 
foothold  in  Rome. 

The  earliest  Stoic  philosopher  of  whom  we  hear 
in  Rome  was  Diogenes  of  Babylon;  but  the 
member  of  the  school  who  had  the  greatest  in- 
fluence in  the  imperial  city  was  Panaetius,  the 
intimate  friend  of  Scipio  Africanus  the  Younger, 
whose  treatise  on  "Duty,"  long  since  lost,  was 
the  source  from  which  Cicero  drew  most  ot  the 
materials  for  his  "De  Officiis,"  the  first  and  second 
books  of  which  he  himself  characterizes  as  a  free 
translation  or  paraphrase  of  the  work  of  Pan  ae- 
tius.  The  "  De  Officiis  "  is  the  best  statement  of 
the  Stoic  ethics  of  its  time,  and  is  also  in  some 
important  particulars  the  master-work  of  all  time 
in  ethical  philosophy.     Strange  to  say,  Cicero  was 


286      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL.  ' 

not  a  Stoic.  He  professed  to  belong  to  the  New 
Academy,  whose  system  was  a  hybrid  of  Platonism 
and  Pyrrhonism  ;  but  he  wrote  this  treatise  for 
the  benefit  of  his  son,  who  —  then  at  school  in 
Athens  —  had  been  wild  and  dissipated,  and  had 
given  his  father  a  vast  deal  of  trouble  and  appre- 
hension. Cicero  evidently  thought  the  Stoic 
morals  better  for  the  youth  than  the  somewhat 
looser  code  provisionally  maintained  by  the  phi- 
losophers of  his  own  school.  It  was  very  much  as 
if  a  Mahometan  sage  or  a  Jewish  rabbi  were  to 
write  for  his  son  a  treatise  on  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  as  likely  to  do  the  youth  more  good  than 
the  moral  teachings  of  the  Koran  or  the  Talmud. 
The  "  De  OrBciis  "  is  more  Christian-like  than  any 
other  pre-Christian  ethical  treatise.  I  could  count 
on  the  fingers  of  one  hand  the  sentences  which  a 
Christian  might  not  have  written  ;  and  the  division 
is  so  exhaustive,  and  the  arrangement  so  perfect, 
that  there  is  room  for  the  insertion  of  such 
maxims  and  principles  as  can  be  derived  only 
from  Him  who  "  spake  as  never  man  spake."  It 
professes  to  treat  of  the  secondary  or  intermediate 
duties,  which  are,  in  fact,  by  the  Stoic  theory  all 
the  duties  incumbent  on  the  perfect  man,  with 
only  this  difference,  that  the  perfect  man  is  a  law 
to  himself,  and  in  no  need  of  teaching,  while 
those  on  the  lower  plane,  or  rather  on  the  upward 


STOICISM   UNDER    THE  EMPERORS.         287 

acclivity,  need  to  have  the  steps  of  their  ascend- 
ing way  clearly  defined.  The  treatise  is  divided 
into  three  books.  The  first  treats  of  the  Right, 
as  derived  from  and  shown  by  nature,  under 
substantially  the  four  divisions  which  I  designated 
as  cardinal  virtues.  The  second  has  for  its  sub- 
ject  the  Expedient ;  and  its  aim  is  to  show  what 
outward  goods  may  be  secured,  and  how,  consist- 
ently with  the  Right.  The  third  discusses  cases 
in  which  there  seems  to  be  a  conflict  between  the 
Right  and  the  Expedient,  and  maintains  that  the 
conflict  is  only  seeming,  never  real,  and  that  by 
no  possibility  can  the  right  ever  be  inexpedient, 
or  the  wrong  expedient. 

Not  a  few  of  the  best  men  among  Cicero's 
coevals  were  of  the  Stoic  school;  and  pre-eminent 
among  them  was  Marcus  Porcius  Cato,  who  per- 
ished at  Utica, — who,  though  as  to  his  domestic 
relations  he  could  hardly  claim  approval  by  the 
Christian  standard,  was  regarded  as  the  most  in- 
flexibly virtuous  man  of  his  time,  and  of  whom  it 
was,  that,  as  to  the  civil  war  in  which  he  slew 
himself  rather  than  accept  the  pardon  and  peace 
which  Julius  Caesar  wanted  to  offer  him,  Lucan 
said,  "  The  victor  cause  had  the  approval  of  the 
gods ;  that  of  the  vanquished,  Cato's." 

Under  the  Roman  emperors,  Stoicism  obtained 
growing  ascendency  in  the  best  minds.     With  the 


288      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

inrush  of  luxury,  prodigality,  and  sycophancy,  the 
opposite  polarity  had  an  irresistible  attraction  for 
characters  of  a  better  mould.  A  very  large  pro- 
portion of  the  victims  of  imperial  jealousy  and 
proscription,  especially  under  Nero,  were  of  this 
school ;  and  there  was  a  glorious  array  of  noble 
women,  too,  some  suffering  with  their  husbands, 
others  not  attaining  this  privilege,  yet  by  their 
courage  making  those  dearest  to  them  feel  that  it 
was  far  better  to  yield  up  life  than  to  sacrifice  in- 
tegrity or  honor.  In  the  darkest  times,  there 
were  Stoic  philosophers  who  played  the  part  of 
propagandists  and  missionaries,  and  others  who 
went  from  house  to  house  to  minister  strength  to 
the  death-doomed  and  consolation  to  the  bereaved. 
We  have  instances  on  record  of  their  having  been 
sent  for  in  crises  of  need  and  peril,  as  Christian 
ministers  are  now  often  called  to  the  bedside  or 
the  house  of  mourning.  In  better  times  they 
found  access  to  the  throne,  and  no  complacency 
for  the  purple  or  the  diadem  made  them  reticent 
as  to  the  responsibility  and  the  obligations  of  a 
ruler  over  men. 

I  propose  now  to  give  you  some  account  of  the 
leading  Stoics  in  imperial  Rome.  First  of  all  was 
Seneca,  both  greatest  and  least  of  all,  —  greatest 
as  a  writer,  least  as  a  man.  His  eulogists  main- 
tain that  he  was  a  man  of  pure  character;  but  he 


SENECA'S  CHARACTER.  289 

was  repeatedly  brought  into  such  close  proximity 
to  evil,  and  incurred  so  many  and  diverse  charges 
dishonorable  to  his  reputation,  that  it  seems  diffi- 
cult to  make  of  him  a  consistently  good  man. 
Where  there  is  dense  and  continuous  smoke,  there 
must  be  fire,  even  though  you  cannot  see  the 
blaze.  Seneca  was  born  in  Spain,  came  to  Rome 
in  his  childhood,  studied  rhetoric  and  philosophy, 
and  acquired  considerable  reputation  as  an  advo- 
cate. He  was  banished  to  Corsica  by  Claudius 
on  the  charge  of  a  criminal  intrigue  with  the  em- 
peror's niece ;  yet  the  charge,  it  is  said  by  his  de- 
fenders, was  fully  as  likely  to  have  been  invented 
to  account  for  the  banishment  as  the  banishment 
to  have  been  the  consequence  of  actual  guilt. 
After  eight  years  he  was  recalled  through  the  in- 
fluence of  Agrippina  who  had  just  married  Clau- 
dius, and  was  made  tutor  of  her  son  Nero.  It  is 
claimed,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  good  promise 
of  Nero's  early  youth,  and  the  mildness  and  clem- 
ency that  characterized  the  beginning  of  his  reign, 
were  due  to  Seneca's  healthful  and  intenerating 
influence ;  while  it  is  alleged,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  debaucheries  at  which  his  tutor  connived 
were  the  first  stages  on  his  vile  and  fiendish  career. 
It  is  claimed  for  Seneca  that  he  remained  at  Nero's 
court  in  the  hope  of  exerting  a  salutary  restraint 
on  his   lust   and   passion ;    but  the  restraint  cer- 


290      THE  ETUICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

tainly  left  no  traces  in  the  record  of  Nero's  reign. 
Whether  Seneca  counselled  or  abetted  Nero  in  the 
murder  of  his  mother  and  his  own  benefactress, 
does  not  clearly  appear;  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  wrote  Nero's  letter  to  the  Senate, 
charging  his  mother  with  a  conspiracy  against 
him,  and  asserting  that  she  committed  suicide. 
Seneca  was  very  rich,  and  lent  money  on  what 
now  seem  usurious  rates  of  interest ;  but  it  may 
have  been  that  large  emoluments  of  office  came  to 
him  without  his  seeking  them :  and,  as  for  usury, 
I  doubt  whether,  in  any  age  or  state  of  society, 
money  will  ever  command  a  higher  rate  of  interest 
than  may  be  measured  by  the  profit  of  the  bor- 
rower and  the  risk  of  the  lender;  and  this  last 
item  under  Nero  must  have  been  a  very  heavy 
one,  as  suspicion  and  the  trail  of  the  informer, 
who  hardly  ever  failed  to  be  a  defamer  also,  fol- 
lowed all  the  routes  where  money  made  its  way, 
and  rested  wherever  money  was  to  be  found. 
When  the  tyrant  had  made  all  the  use  he  could 
of  the  philosopher,  and  Seneca  knew  that  his 
official  career  was  over,  he  sought,  by  retiring 
from  the  palace,  and  offering  to  give  up  his  prop- 
erty, to  save  his  life ;  but,  under  the  undoubtedly 
false  pretext  of  his  complicity  in  a  plot  against 
the  emperor's  life,  he  had  the  alternative  pre- 
sented to  him  of  dying  by  another's  hand,  or  by 


SENECA'S  ETHICAL    WRITINGS.  291 

his  own.  He  chose  the  latter.  His  closing  hours 
were  tranquil,  as  became  his  philosophy.  His  per- 
sonal habits  were,  at  least  after  his  return  from 
Corsica,  severely  simple,  almost  ascetic ;  and  his 
mode  of  living,  though  he  was  surrounded  by 
splendor  and  luxury,  could  hardly  have  been  more 
self-denying  had  he  been  dependent  on  casual 
alms. 

Seneca's  ethical  works  comprise  treatises  on  a 
wide  range  of  subjects,  besides  a  large  collection 
of  letters  to  Lucilius,  a  young  man  to  whom  he 
stood  in  a  relation  like  that  held  by  spiritual  di- 
rectors in  the  Roman-Catholic  Church.  His  moral 
precepts  and  the  tone  in  which  they  are  given  are, 
for  the  most  part,  so  thoroughly  evangelical  as  to 
Jiave  led  to  the  unauthentic  tradition  that  he  had 
made  St.  Paul's  acquaintance,  and  had  derived 
from  the  apostle  the  pervading  sentiments  of  his 
moral  writings.  The  tradition  is  very  little  to  the 
credit  either  of  the  apostle  or  of  the  philosopher ; 
for  St.  Paul  ought  to  have  made  a  more  loyal  con- 
vert than  Seneca  can  possibly  have  been ;  while 
Seneca,  if  he  had  known  Paul,  might  in  some 
form  or  way  have  interposed  in  his  behalf,  —  a 
step  which  would  have  left  some  record  of  itself 
in  Christian  history,  if  not  in  Seneca's  own  writ- 
ings. Whether  Seneca  believed  in  the  immortal- 
ity of  the  soul,  is  a  matter  of  doubt.     He  speaks 


292      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

not  infrequently  of  the  future  after  death ;  but  it 
is  hard  to  say  whether  he  means  that  men  live  on 
in  fame  and  influence,  or  in  their  own  proper 
selves. 

Epictetus,  a  little  younger  than  Seneca,  was  for 
many  years  the  slave  of  a  freedman  and  favorite 
of  Nero.  He  was  treated  brutally  by  his  master, 
who  amused  himself  by  twisting  his  slave's  leg 
with  some  instrument  of  torture,  and  at  length 
broke  the  leg,  and  lamed  him  for  life.  While  still 
a  slave,  having  undoubtedly  brought  from  his  na- 
tive Epeirus  the  germs  of  liberal  culture,  he  be- 
came a  Stoic.  How  he  obtained  his  freedom  does 
not  appear ;  but  after  he  became  free,  he  lived  in 
a  dilapidated  hovel,  and  gave  his  instruction,  with- 
out price,  to  all  who  were  willing  to  be  his, 
learners.  When  Domitian  banished  all  philoso- 
phers from  Rome,  he  returned  to  his  native  coun- 
try, and  lectured  there.  If  he  wrote  any  thing,  it 
is  lost.  What  we  have  of  him  was  written  from 
notes  taken  from  his  lips  or  from  memory  by  his 
pupil  Arrian.  He  was  universally  esteemed  for 
his  purity  and  loftiness  of  character;  and  after  his 
death  he  was  held  in  such  reverent  remembrance 
that  his  lamp  of  coarse  pottery  was  sold  to  a  relic- 
hunter  for  three  thousand  drachmas,  —  a  sum 
equivalent  to  seven  or  eight  thousand  dollars. 

Epictetus  summed  up  human  duty  in  two  words, 


EPICTETUS.  293 

which  might  be  rendered,  "  Bear  "  and  "Forbear ; " 
that  is,  endure  bravely  whatever  comes  upon  you, 
and  refrain  from  whatever  can  becloud  your  rea- 
son, impair  your  freedom  of  soul,  or  degrade  you 
in  your  own  esteem.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
token  of  his  having  had  any  knowledge  of  Chris- 
tianity or  of  its  sacred  books;  and  had  he  been 
acquainted  with  them,  it  is  hardly  possible,  that, 
with  a  soul  so  well  fitted  for  continued  being,  he 
should  not  have  welcomed  the  revelation  of  im- 
mortality, which  was  manifestly  beyond  his  belief 
and  hope.  But  he  evinces  a  profound  and  con- 
trolling sense  of  the  divine  presence,  and  a  cheer- 
ful and  loving  trust  in  the  divine  providence. 
His  idea  of  the  true  mission  of  the  public  teacher 
of  philosophy  is  at  once  so  lofty  and  so  just  that 
it  might  well  serve  in  spirit,  though  not  in  its 
details,  as  an  efficient  charge  to  teachers  of  reli- 
gion under  Christian  auspices.  Non-Christian,  in- 
deed, we  call  him  ;  but  he  certainly  belongs  among 
those  of  whom  Jesus  Christ  says,  "  Other  sheep 
I  have,  who  are  not  of  this  fold."  Take  as  a  speci- 
men the  following  passage  :  — 

"  Know,  first  of  all,  that  whoever  engages  in  so 
great  an  enterprise  without  the  help  of  God  be- 
comes the  object  of  the  divine  displeasure,  and 
will  only  cover  himself  with  shame  in  the  eyes  of 
all.     Above  all  things  else,  he  who  is  going  to  be 


294      THE  ET1IICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

the  preceptor  of  the  human  race  must  take  him- 
self in  hand,  must  extinguish  within  himself  his 
passions,  must  purify  himself,  must  say  to  himself, 
4  My  soul  is  the  raw  material  which  I  must  work 
up  as  the  carpenter  does  the  wood,  or  the  shoe- 
maker the  leather.'  Thus  prepared,  he  must  know 
that  he  is  an  ambassador  of  Zeus  with  men.  He 
must  preach  by  example ;  and  to  the  poor,  the  dis- 
inherited, who  complain  of  their  lot,  he  must  be 
able  to  say,  '  Look  at  me.  Like  you  I  am  without 
country,  without  house,  without  goods,  without 
slaves.  I  lie  upon  the  ground.  I  have  neither 
wife  nor  child.  I  have  only  the  earth,  the  sky, 
and  a  cloak.'  Take  counsel  of  God ;  and  if  he 
encourages  you  in  your  enterprise,  know  that  he 
wishes  you  to  grow  great  by  suffering.  The  phi- 
losopher may  be  beaten  like  an  ass ;  but  if  so,  he 
must  love  the  very  persons  who  beat  him,  as  a 
father  and  a  brother  of  all  men." 

Epictetus  equally  wins  our  sympathy  in  his 
pious  and  fervent  adoration  of  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing. In  one  passage,  after  enumerating  the  ben- 
efits received  from  God,  and  lamenting  man's 
ingratitude  and  indifference,  he  bursts  into  what 
needs  only  rhythm  to  become  a  hymn  of  praise. 

"  Since  you,  men,  are  most  of  you  blind,  is  there 
not  need  of  one  to  sing  for  all  the  hymn  to  the 
Deity?     What  can  I  do,  old  and  lame  as  I  am, 


TIIE  STOIC  EMPEROR.  295 

but  to  sing  God  ?  Were  I  a  nightingale,  I  should 
play  the  part  of  a  nightingale  ;  were  I  a  swan,  that 
of  a  swan.  I  am  a  reasonable  being:  I  must  sing 
God.  It  is  my  business,  and  I  do  it.  It  is  my 
part,  and  I  will  perform  it  as  well  as  I  can ;  and  I 
beg  you  all  to  sing  with  me." 

From  the  slave  we  pass  to  the  throne.  The 
Stoic  philosophy  had  been,  while  Christianity  was 
emerging  from  obscurity  into  the  broad  light  of  day, 
the  only  antiseptic  which  had  preserved  Roman 
society  from  utter  and  loathsome  corruption ;  and 
its  last  triumph  is  in  a  Stoic  emperor,  Marcus 
Aurelius,  who,  together  with  the  traits  that  render 
him  truly  great  as  a  commander  of  men  at  home 
and  in  the  field,  manifests  the  simple  virtues  that 
would  have  made  private  life  illustrious.  In  him 
the  hardness  of  the  old  Stoicism  has  entirely  dis- 
appeared. His  philosophy  is  a  gentle,  tender,  lov- 
ing spirit,  full  of  resignation,  trust,  and  piety  in 
its  Godward  aspects.  He,  of  course,  had  no  in- 
terior knowledge  of  Christianity,  with  which  he 
could  not  have  become  acquainted  without  recog- 
nizing it  as  at  every  point  in  harmony  with  his 
own  spirit.  He  persecuted  it  on  political  grounds, 
as  threatening  the  unity  of  the  empire ;  and  he 
probably  had  no  knowledge  of  the  character  of 
the  Christians.  He  was  educated  with  the  utmost 
care,  and   under  the   happiest  influences,  and  — 


296      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

what  is  of  at  least  equal  importance  —  he  seems 
to  have  inherited  the  finest  traits  of  character.  I 
have  repeatedly  spoken  of  heredity  as  a  factor  of 
character.  I  can  hardly  illustrate  my  belief  on 
this  subject  better  than  by  quoting  from  Marcus 
Aurelius  his  resumS  of  his  obligations  to  those 
who  had  transmitted  even  more  than  formed  his 
character :  — 

"From  my  grandfather  [who  brought  him  up] 
I  learned  good  morals  and  the  government  of  my 
temper ;  from  the  reputation  and  memory  of  my 
father  [who  died  in  his  early  boyhood],  modesty 
and  a  manly  character;  from  my  mother,  piety 
and  beneficence,  and  abstinence  not  only  from 
evil  deeds,  but  even  from  evil  thoughts,  also  sim- 
plicity in  my  way  of  living,  far  removed  from  the 
habits  of  the  rich ;  from  my  grandfather,  not  to 
have  frequented  public  schools,  and  to  have  had 
good  teachers  at  home,  and  to  know  that  on  such 
things  a  man  should  spend  liberally,"  —  this  last, 
at  first  sight,  not  a  matter  of  heredity,  yet  virtually 
so ;  for  Marcus  Aurelius,  while  frugal,  equally  as 
to  both  personal  and  public  expenditure,  spared 
no  cost  in  the  encouragement  of  learning  and  of 
learned  men. 

He  was,  in  the  highest  sense  possible  for  those 
who  had  him  in  charge,  consecrated  from  his  in- 
fancy.    At  the  age  of  eight  he  was  made  a  priest 


LIFE  OF  MARCUS  AURELIUS.  297 

of  Mars,  and  as  such  sang  hymns  in  the  temple, 
and  took  part  in  religions  processions.  At  twelve 
he  was  already  a  professed  Stoic,  and  commenced 
practising  the  ascetic  usages  and  wearing  the  cos- 
tume of  the  teachers  and  advanced  disciples  of 
that  school,  who  formed  what  bore  much  of  the 
semblance  of  a  monastic  order.  He,  at  first,  slept 
on  a  bare  board,  and  only  at  the  importunity  of 
his  mother  consented  to  make  use  of  the  simplest 
and  hardest  of  mattresses.  When  he  became  head 
of  the  empire,  he  had  already  had  large  adminis- 
trative experience  as  the  colleague  of  Antoninus 
Pius,  whose  adopted  son  he  was.  His  reign  was 
distinguished  by  rigid  impartiality  in  the  admin- 
istration of  justice,  and  by  clemency  wherever 
mercy  could  be  a  virtue.  He  gave  personal  atten- 
tion to  whatever  affairs  were  brought  under  his 
cognizance,  and  availed  himself  of  every  opportu- 
nity of  learning  the  actual  needs  of  his  people, 
and  the  ways  in  which  those  needs  were  met  by 
his  subordinates.  The  empire  was  declining.  In- 
ternal grangrene  was,  indeed,  checked  to  a  great 
degree  under  his  rule ;  but  it  had  already  become 
incurable.  Outside  barbarians  were  constant^ 
crossing  the  frontiers,  and  encountering  ever 
more  feeble  resistance.  The  army  gave  hardly 
less  trouble  than  the  enemies,  composed  as  it  was 
of  various  and  discordant   races,  —  mere    merce- 


298      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

naries,  with  no  show  or  pretence  of  patriotism, 
and  virtually  holding  the  controlling  power  of  the 
state.  Marcus  Aurelius  was,  during  a  considera- 
ble portion  of  his  reign,  absent  from  Rome  on  dis- 
tant and  arduous  campaigns ;  and  though  the  days 
of  Roman  glory  were  passed,  he  displayed  as  a 
commander  an  energy  and  skill  worthy  of  the  best 
times  of  the  republic. 

Of  his  writings  we  have,  besides  a  few  letters, 
his  "  Meditations,"  —  a  journal  probably  intended 
for  no  eye  but  his  own.  In  accordance  with  the 
practice  recommended  first  by  Pythagoras,  and 
after  him  by  philosophers  of  various  schools,  he 
was  accustomed  at  the  close  of  each  day  to  pass 
its  events  and  experiences  in  solemn  review,  that 
he  might  mark  for  correction  or  supply  whatever 
had  been  wrong  or  defective,  and  might  take  his 
bearings  for  the  next  day's  lifeway.  The  "  Med- 
itations "  are  the  outcome  of  these  hours  of 
self-recollection.  They  consist,  very  largely,  of 
self-examination,  of  reflections  on  the  duties  and 
on  the  mysteries  of  life,  and,  especially,  of  tenderly 
devout  aspirations,  indicating  a  firm  and  loving 
faith  in  the  divine  providence,  and  a  sense  of 
close  spiritual  union  with  the  one  Supreme  Being. 
There  is  a  constant  recognition  of  the  heavy 
responsibilities  resting  on  a  monarch's  conscience, 
showing  that  his  imperial  dignity  was  regarded  as 


PLUTARCH.  299 

a  sacred  trust  for  his  fellow-men,  but  for  himself 
as  a  burden  to  be  submissively  borne,  rather  than 
as  an  elevation  to  be  coveted.  A  pensive  spirit 
runs  through  the  entire  book,  as  of  a  soul  weighed 
down  and  weary.  There  is  no  clear  expression 
of  a  faith  in  immortality ;  yet  it  is  very  evident 
that  he  had  visions  of  a  life  beyond  death,  and 
longed  to  find  them  true.  This  diary  was  con- 
tinued during  his  campaigns  ;  and  it  would  seem 
that  no  weariness,  anxiety,  or  peril  was  permitted 
to  interfere  with  his  nightly  soul-shrift. 

He  survived  his  senior  colleague  in  the  empire 
nineteen  years,  and  died  of  a  camp-fever  near  the 
site  of  the  present  city  of  Vienna,  shortly  after 
having  obtained  a  signal  victory  over  the  rude 
German  hordes  that  infested  the  eastern  borders 
of  the  empire.  In  him  Stoicism  may  be  said  to 
have  found  its  consummation,  and  his  is  the  last 
great  Roman  name  that  is  specially  identified  with 
the  Stoic  school ;  though  of  the  distinguished 
jurists  in  succeeding  reigns,  there  were  several 
known  to  have  professed  allegiance  to  the  philoso- 
phy of  the  Porch. 

At  an  earlier  date,  there  was  a  Greek,  who, 
though  not  professedly  a  Stoic,  was  so  in  principle 
and  character,  and  whom  I  want  to  name  as  fore- 
most among  all  the  non-Christian  ethical  writers 
of  antiquity,  namely,  Plutarch,  a  native  of  Bceo- 


300      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

tia,  who  would  probably  have  called  himself  an 
Eclectic,  perhaps,  a  Platonist,  who  wrote  against 
the  Stoics,  but  only  against  those  extreme  dogmas 
which  never  had  currency  in  Rome,  and  whose 
ethics  are  in  most  respects  as  closely  conformed 
to  the  doctrines  of  the  Stoics  as  if  he  had  never 
had  a  thought  beyond  their  pale.  He  was  born 
about  the  middle  of  the  first  Christian  century,  and 
died  at  about  the  time  that  Marcus  Aurelius  was 
born.  His  "  Lives "  were  written  with  a  mani- 
festly ethical  purpose,  "  for  reproof,  correction,  and 
instruction  in  righteousness."  He  evidently  felt 
and  mourned  the  degeneracy  of  his  time,  was  pro- 
foundly aware  of  the  worth  of  teaching  by  exam- 
ple, and  was  solicitous  to  bring  from  the  past 
such  elements  of  ethical  wisdom  as  the  records  of 
illustrious  men  could  be  made  to  render  up. 
True  to  this  aim,  he  measures  the  moral  character 
of  such  transactions  as  he  relates  by  the  highest 
standard  of  right  which  he  knows,  and  that  is 
always  virtually  the  Stoic  standard,  namely,  truth 
to  nature,  or  what  we  might,  perhaps,  more  aptly 
term  the  intrinsic  right ;  and  no  person  or  act  is 
suffered  to  pass  without  the  clear-cut  stamp  of  his 
approval  or  censure.  The  only  seeming  excep- 
tions are  when,  in  a  person  renowned  for  really 
worthy  traits  of  character  and  noble  deeds,  he 
is  inclined   to   ascribe  what  is  bad   or  wrong  to 


PLUTARCII'S   "MORALIA."  301 

defective    knowledge    rather    than    to    defective 
principle. 

But  the  "  Lives,"  though  the  best  known,  are 
but  a  small  part  of  Plutarch's  works.  The  treatises 
included  under  the  general  title  of  "  Moralia  "  are, 
most  of  them,  on  distinctively  moral  subjects, 
and  cover  a  very  wide  range  of  topics,  discussing 
at  length  what  are  commonly,  though  wrongly, 
called  the  minor  morals,  that  is,  the  evils  that 
infest  and  disturb  the  happiness  of  families  and 
of  social  life,  and  their  opposite  virtues,  and  no 
less  full  and  thorough  on  the  reputedly  larger 
subjects  usually  treated  in  works  on  moral  philoso- 
phy. Thus  we  have,  on  the  one  hand,  essays  on 
Idle  Talking,  Curiosity,  Self-Praise,  and  the  like ; 
on  the  other  hand,  such  grave  themes  as  "The 
Benefits  that  a  Man  may  derive  from  his  Ene- 
mies," and  "  The  Best  Means  of  Self-Knowledge." 
There  is  in  these  essays  a  blending  of  common 
sense  and  of  keen  ethical  insight ;  and  so  little 
does  human  nature  change  with  its  surroundings, 
that  a  very  large  proportion  of  Plutarch's  coun- 
sels, cautions,  and  precepts  are  as  closely  applica- 
ble to  our  own  time  as  if  they  had  been  written 
yesterday.  There  are,  too,  letters  of  consolation, 
rich,  sweet,  and  tender,  and  breathing  so  firm  a 
faith  in  immortality  as  to  be  hardly  transcended 
by  the  most  glowing  utterances  of  St.  Paul  when 


302      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

the  crown  of  martyrdom  seemed  close  at  hand. 
There  is  a  letter  to  his  wife  on  the  death  of  a 
daughter  two  years  old  during  his  absence  from 
home,  which  contains  very  little  that  a  Christian 
father  might  not  have  written,  and  which  seems 
to  me  to  surpass  in  elevation  and  purity  of  thought 
and  feeling,  in  spirituality  and  heavenly-mind- 
edness,  all  other  writings  of  the  kind  that  I 
have  ever  seen.  I  cannot  but  feel  that  somehow 
Easter-morning  rays  had  struggled  through  the 
dense  Boeotian  atmosphere,  and  that  Christ  had 
spoken  to  the  receptive  hearts  of  those  whose 
ueyes  were  holden  so  that  they  could  not  see 
him." 

The  most  remarkable  of  alt  Plutarch's  writings 
is  a  dialogue  on  the  "Delay  of  the  Divine  Justice," 
or  retribution.  It  treats  of  what  from  the  earli- 
est time  has  been  a  mystery  to  serious  minds,  and 
an  objection  urged  both  by  malignant  irreligion 
and  by  honest  scepticism  against  the  supremacy  of 
the  divine  justice  in  the  government  of  the  world, 
namely,  the  postponement  of  the  penal  conse- 
quences of  guilt,  sometimes  till  there  are  no  wit- 
nesses of  the  crime  left  to  behold  its  punishment, 
sometimes  till  the  offender  himself  has  lost  the 
thread  between  the  evil  that  he  did  and  its 
retribution,  sometimes  till  the  offender  has  gone 
to  the  grave  in  peace,  and  left  innocent  posterity 


PLUTARCH,   ON   RETRIBUTION.  303 

to  suffer  for  his  sins.  Plutarch,  with  his  unques- 
tioning faith  in  immortality,  doubts  not  that  guilt 
has  its  due  retribution  in  the  life  to  come.  But, 
as  he  says,  retribution,  though  it  may  have  its 
consummation  in  the  future  life,  is  never  delayed 
till  then.  It  seems  late  because  it  lasts  long. 
The  sentence  falls  upon  the  guilt  when  it  is  com- 
mitted ;  and  however  its  visible  execution  may  be 
postponed,  the  sinner  is  thenceforth  a  prisoner  of 
the  divine  justice,  awaiting  execution.  He  may 
give  splendid  suppers,  and  live  luxuriously,  yet  it 
is  within  prison  walls  from  which  there  is  no 
escape. 

This  is  universally  and  inevitably  true  with  ref- 
erence to  deliberate  guilt  and  to  continuous  de- 
pravity. Yet  there  are  cases  of  a  different  kind, 
in  which  the  delay  of  retribution  has  a  directly 
merciful  purpose.  As  the  most  fertile  soil  may 
produce  before  tillage  the  rankest  weeds,  so  in  the 
soul  most  capable  of  good  there  may  be,  prior  to 
culture,  a  noisome  crop  of  evil,  and  yet  God  may 
spare  the  sinner  for  the  good  that  is  in  him,  and 
for  the  signal  service,  which,  when  reclaimed,  he 
will  render  to  mankind.  Plutarch  gives  several 
instances  of  this,  to  which  Christian  history  might 
add  many  more  from  St.  Augustine  down  to  our 
own  day. 

Then,  again,  as  Plutarch  says  justly  and  impres- 


304      THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  STOIC  SCHOOL. 

sively,  by  the  delay  of  visible  judgment  God  gives 
men  in  his  own  example  the  lesson  of  long-suffer- 
ing, and  rebukes  their  promptness  in  resentment 
and  the  hot  haste  in  which  they  are  prone  to 
revenge  injury. 

Still  farther,  when  the  penalty  appears  to  fall 
on  the  posterity  or  the  successors  of  the  guilty,  and 
a  race,  a  city,  or  a  people  seems  punished  for  the 
iniquity  of  its  progenitors,  Plutarch  brings  out 
very  fully  the  absolutely  essential  and  necessary 
solidarity  of  the  family  or  the  community,  which 
can  hardly  fail  so  to  inherit  of  its  ancestors  in 
disposition  and  character  as  to  invite  upon  itself, 
and  to  merit  for  itself,  the  consequences  of  an- 
cestral guilt.  At  the  best,  the  alternative  will 
be  the  guilt,  or  the  punishment  which  may  deter 
from  sin  and  issue  in  the  purging  away  of  in- 
herited evil. 

This  treatise  is  all  the  more  valuable  because  not 
written  by  a  Christian.  It  shows  that  the  intense 
stress  laid  by  Christianity  on  a  righteous  retribu- 
tion lasting  beyond  the  death-change  is  not  a 
mere  scriptural  dogma,  but  the  postulate  of  the 
unsophisticated  reason  and  conscience  of  devel- 
oped humanity. 


LECTURE  XII. 

THE  INFLUENCE   OF  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS 
ON  ROMAN  LAW. 

Christianity  must  very  early  have  acquired 
an  influence  in  the  aristocracy  and  the  governing 
classes  of  Rome  and  the  Roman  Empire.  To  be 
sure,  its  profession  was  at  first  almost  wholly  con- 
fined to  Jews  and  slaves.  But  the  very  banish- 
ment of  Jews  from  Rome  by  Claudius  —  a  decree 
the  force  of  which  was  soon  spent  —  shows  that 
they  were  an  important  factor  of  Roman  society : 
and  as  large  numbers  of  the  Jews  not  in  Judaea 
were  merchants,  and  many  of  them  persons  of  su- 
perior culture,  their  ideas  and  sentiments  could 
easily  have  obtained  currency  among  both  the 
speculative  and  the  active  members  of  the  com- 
munity. Moreover,  though  the  social  relations  of 
Jews  in  Rome  with  persons  of  high  office  or  posi- 
tion cannot  in  general  have  been  intimate,  we 
have  record  of  some  very  close  intimacies  of  that 
kind,  as  of  the  Herod  family  in  all  its  branches 
with  the  family  of  Pollio,  and  with  those  of  other 

305 


306      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  BOM  AN  LAW. 

chief  men  of  the  state.  In  the  Roman  mind  it 
was  long  before  Christianity  assumed  a  form  dis- 
tinct from  Judaism;  and  it  is  by  no  means  im- 
probable that  among  the  few  Jews  who  lived  in 
terms  of  familiarity  with  distinguished  Roman 
families,  there  were  some  Christians. 

That  there  were  many  Christian  slaves  in  Rome 
during  the  first  Christian  centuries,  we  very  well 
know.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  slavery, 
though  absolute  in  its  sway,  and  often  abject  in 
its  condition,  gave  numerous  special  opportunities 
of  extended  and  enduring  influence.  The  offices  of 
secretary,  amanuensis,  librarian,  and  instructor  of 
youth  were  generally  filled  by  slaves,  as  were  the 
nearest  and  most  confidential  relations  of  domes- 
tic service.  In  very  many  cases  the  slaves  were 
the  most  intelligent  and  the  best  educated  mem- 
bers of  the  family.  St.  Paul,  writing  from  Rome, 
speaks  of  the  saints,  or  Christians,  in  Caesar's,  that 
is,  Nero's,  household  —  slaves,  of  course,  or  freed- 
raen  —  as  persons  well  known  and  highly  respected 
in  Christian  circles,  who  must  have  been  capable 
of  exercising  a  somewhat  extended  influence. 
Now,  in  what  form  would  this  influence  have  been 
exerted?  Seldom  in  any  direct  attempt  at  prose- 
lytism.  For  the  most  part,  not  even  in  an  open 
profession  of  the  despised  and  suspected  faith ;  for 
there  was  doubtless  sincere  loyalty  to  Christ  in 


STOICISM  AFTER   CHRIST.  307 

many  a  soul  not  ambitious  of  the  crown  of  martyr- 
dom, —  in  men  who  would  not  for  their  lives  have 
denied  their  Master,  yet  were  not  unwilling  to 
shun  needless  publicity  in  their  adherence  to  their 
religion.  The  genuinely  Christian  body -servant, 
scribe,  or  instructor  would  rather  have  availed  him- 
self of  his  familiarity  with  the  teachings  of  Christ 
by  giving  utterance  to  a  higher  ethical  wisdom 
than  the  world  had  known  before,  by  breath- 
ing and  diffusing  a  more  humane,  tender,  philan- 
thropic spirit,  and,  wherever  it  was  safe  to  do  so, 
by  giving  prominence  to  that  idea  of  brotherhood 
and  equality  in  the  sight  of  God  which  so  strongly 
characterized  the  precepts  and  spirit  of  Christ. 
Such  ideas  would  have  taken  root  and  fructified 
in  contemplative  and  philosophic  minds,  and  would 
have  manifested  themselves  in  literature  before 
they  could  find  embodiment  in  legislation,  thus 
modifying  the  administration  of  the  law  before 
they  could  obtain  distinct  recognition  in  its  text. 
Stoicism  at  and  after  the  time  of  Nero  bears  this 
imprint,  having  passed,  in  the  Latin  phrase,  per 
saltum,  "  by  a  sudden  bound,"  rather  than  by  insen- 
sible gradations,  from  a  hard  and  coarse  asceticism 
into  an  ethical  system  pre-eminently  humane,  gen- 
ial, fraternal,  and  catholic.  As  I  said  in  my  last 
lecture,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Seneca 
ever  saw  St.  Paul,  or  had  any  knowledge  of  Chris- 


308      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  ROMAN  LA  W. 

tianity  as  such,  though  there  is  extant  a  spurious 
correspondence  between  them,  evidently  a  fig- 
ment of  the  Middle  Ages ;  but  that  both  he  and 
Epictetus,  and  equally  Plutarch  in  Bceotia,  had 
ethical  notions  derived  reall}*,  though  indirectly, 
from  Christian  sources,  I  have  no  manner  of 
doubt;  and  as  for  the  Romans  whom  I  have 
named,  the  position  of  Seneca  as  Nero's  tutor  and 
prime  minister,  and  that  of  Epictetus  as  the  slave 
of  one  of  his  freedmen,  would,  not  unnaturally, 
have  brought  them  sometimes  under  the  wordfall 
of  Christian  lips.  Moreover,  the  Stoic  philoso- 
phers, in  reigns  when  philosophy  was  not  under 
the  ban  of  the  empire,  were  generally  public 
teachers,  and  at  all  times  exercised  quite  largely, 
as  Epictetus  did  after  his  emancipation,  a  ministry 
not  unlike  that  of  the  Christian  pastorate.  In 
ways  like  those  which  I  have  specified,  I  think 
that  we  may  justly  ascribe  to  the  indirect  agency 
of  Christian  sentiment  a  gradual  preparation  of 
the  more  intelligent  and  virtuous  non-Christians 
for  the  improved  legislation  under  the  Christian 
emperors.  Here  we  cannot  but  recognize  the  ap- 
propriateness of  the  figure,  trite  only  because  so 
very  apt,  by  which  Christ  is  called  the  Sun  of 
righteousness.  The  sun  cannot  mount  above  the 
horizon  without  its  light  penetrating  into  recesses 
and  depths  which  its  direct  rays  can  never  reach. 


SLAVERY  IN  ROME.  309 

So  the  morning  beams  of  our  unsetting  Sun  were 
reflected  upon  regions  of  humanity  in  which  the 
name  of  Christ  was  utterly  unknown,  and  on 
which  its  direct  rays  shone  not  till  it  had 
ascended  far  toward  the  zenith. 

The  efficient  reformers  of  the  Roman  law  were, 
all  of  them,  nominally  Christians.  Constantine, 
in  the  interior,  spiritual  sense  of  the  word,  can 
hardly  be  called  a  Christian,  certainly  not,  if 
judged  by  the  aggregate  of  what  is  known  of  him  ; 
but  he  called  himself  a  Christian,  and  his  im- 
proved legislation  was  dictated  by  bishops  who 
were  his  conscience-keepers.  Justinian,  the  great- 
est legislator  of  all  time,  was  a  zealous  Christian, 
in  some  respects  only  too  zealous ;  for  he  was  an 
unrelenting  persecutor  of  heretics,  Jews,  and 
pagans.  Of  the  series  of  Christian  emperors  in 
the  early  centuries,  there  was  hardly  one  whose 
decrees  and  enactments  did  not  bear  the  impress 
of  his  faith,  and  effect  something  in  vindication 
of  the  rights  of  long-oppressed  humanity.  To  ver- 
ify this  statement,  let  us  consider  under  several 
heads  the  influence  of  Christianity  upon  Roman 
law. 

To  begin  with  slavery,  there  has  never  existed 
elsewhere  in  the  civilized  world  a  system  of 
slavery  to  be  compared  in  point  of  barbarity  with 
that  of  Rome,  —  all  the  worse  because  its  victims 


310      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

were  so  often  the  equals  or  superiors  of  the  en- 
slaving race,  and  capable,  therefore,  of  feeling  its 
indignity  to  the  full.  It  was  the  general  custom 
of  Roman  commanders,  in  taking  a  city,  to  put 
into  the  slave-market  all  the  inhabitants  that  they 
did  not  slaughter;  and  prisoners  of  war,  when  not 
slain,  redeemed,  or  exchanged,  were  always  en- 
slaved. Romans  themselves  might  be  made  slaves. 
By  a  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  of  the  repeal  of 
which  we  have  no  record,  though  the  last  clause 
probably  fell  into  disuse,  a  debtor  who  remained 
insolvent  after  sixty  days'  imprisonment  might 
be  sold  as  a  slave,  or  killed,  and  his  body  divided 
among  his  creditors.  The  master's  power  over 
his  slaves  was  unlimited.  The  slaves  had  no 
legal  rights.  Their  testimony  was  taken  only  by 
torture,  and  they  could  be  scourged  or  branded 
at  the  master's  pleasure.  They  were  often  killed 
on  frivolous  pretexts,  for  slight  offences,  for  the 
amusement  of  guests,  as  targets  for  archery,  for 
the  fattening  of  lampreys,  in  passion  or  in  sport, 
on  groundless  suspicion,  or  to  gratify  the  pique 
or  whim  of  an  imperious  mistress  or  a  spoiled 
child.  If  a  master  were  murdered  by  an  un- 
known hand,  it  was  lawful  to  kill  the  entire  family 
of  slaves  on  the  contingency  that  one  of  them 
might  have  been  the  murderer;  and  there  were 
instances  in  which  hundreds  of  lives  were  sacri- 


CRUELTY  TO   SLAVES.  311 

ficed  under  this  law.  The  slaves  had  no  property 
except  by  sufferance,  and  what  they  were  per- 
mitted to  have  became  the  master's  property  when 
they  died. 

Under  Nero,  yet  certainly  not  out  of  his  own 
heart,  but  very  probably  from  the  prompting  of 
some  of  the  Christian  influences  that  must  have 
been  at  work  in  his  court,  it  was  enacted  that  a 
magistrate  might  receive  the  complaint  of  a  slave 
against  his  master ;  and  it  is  on  record  that  re- 
scripts of  Antoninus  Pius,  in  whose  reign  Chris- 
tian influence  was  already  largely  felt,  declared  the 
master  who  killed  his  slave  guilty  of  murder,  and 
ordered  the  sale  to  other  masters  of  such  slaves 
as  took  refuge  in  temples  or  under  the  statues  of 
the  emperor,  in  case  the  magistrate  ascertained 
that  the  charge  of  cruelty  was  well  grounded. 
But  these  ordinances  must  have  been  mere  dead 
letter,  for  there  is  not  the  slightest  mention  made 
of  them  till  they  are  cited  in  Justinian's  u  Insti- 
tutes :  "  and  though  the  literature  of  the  first  three 
Christian  centuries  throws  a  most  ghastly  light  on 
the  horrors  of  slave-life,  and  though  Seneca  is 
unsparing  in  his  denunciation  of  cruelty  to  slaves, 
there  is  before  Constan tine's  time  but  a  single 
instance  of  any  penalty  imposed  on  a  cruel  or 
tyrannical  slave-owner ;  and  that  is  the  case  of  a 
young  girl  who  was  condemned  by  Hadrian   to 


312      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

banishment  for  the  atrocious  torture  of  her  female 
slaves. 

Constantine,  after  his  nominal  conversion,  issued 
the  first  edict  for  the  protection  of  slaves  which 
seems  to  have  had  any  actual  efficiency ;  and 
from  that  moment  a  new  era  took  date,  and  the 
slave  thenceforward  lived,  like  the  free  man,  under 
the  shelter  of  the  magistracy  and  of  the  imperial 
power.  Constantine  enacted  that  the  master  who 
killed  his  slave,  or  subjected  him  to  any  one  of 
several  species  of  torture  specially  enumerated 
and  defined,  —  all  so  horrible  as  to  be  unfit  for 
quotation,  and  showing  how  little  difference 
there  is  between  humanity  at  its  worst  estate 
and  the  popular  conception  of  the  arch-fiend,  — 
should  be  arraigned  and  punished  as  a  murderer. 
He  also  made  the  manumission  of  the  slave  a 
religious  act,  to  be  performed  in  the  church, 
with  the  attestation  of  the  bishop  ;  and  in  the 
spirit  of  this  edict,  when  in  process  of  time 
other  business  came  to  be  prohibited  on  Sun- 
day, manumission,  as  a  religious  duty,  was  not 
only  permitted  on  the  Lord's  Day,  but  was  re- 
garded as  specially  appropriate  to  its  conse- 
crated hours.  Constantine  also  granted  to  the 
clergy  —  thus  showing  the  mind  of  the  clergy 
in  this  matter  —  the  privilege  of  emancipating 
their  slaves  by  mere  verbal  concession,  without 


SLAVERY  IN   THE  CIIURCII.  313 

legal  formality ;  and  the  clergy  in  great  numbers 
availed  themselves  of  this  privilege. 

Under  Constantine,  also,  the  freedmen  obtained 
for  the  first  time  the  full  rights  of  citizenship. 
They  had  before  been  obliged  to  perform  certain 
prescribed  services  for  their  masters,  and  to  sup- 
port them  if  they  became  impoverished ;  and  if 
the  freedman  died  intestate,  his  entire  property 
became  that  of  his  former  master.  But  Constan- 
tine completed  their  enfranchisement. 

Justinian  made  numerous  provisions  in  favor  of 
emancipation.  It  is  impossible  to  say  at  what 
date,  but  not  far  from  his  time,  it  became  a  maxim 
of  the  unwritten  law,  recognized  in  all  the  courts 
of  the  empire,  that  the  child  followed  the  for- 
tunes of  the  father,  so  that  the  acknowledged 
child  of  a  free  man  by  a  slave  mother  was  free,  — 
a  maxim  which  was  generously  extended  to  all 
cases  of  doubtful  parentage,  —  humanity  often 
finding  easy  tolerance  through  a  legal  fiction. 

From  the  very  first,  slaves  were  admitted  to 
holy  orders  without  reference  to  their  servile  con- 
dition, on  the  ground  that  the  gospel  treated  with 
equal  honor,  as  Jew  and  Gentile,  so  bond  and  free  ; 
and  we  have  the  names  of  several  men  of  high 
rank  in  the  Church  who  were  ordained  as  slaves, 
and  of  several  eminent  martyrs,  some  of  them 
canonized  saints,  who  were  slaves.     The  Christian 


314      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

emperors,  from  Constantine  onward,  encouraged 
and  facilitated  the  emancipation  of  slaves  ill 
orders,  till  at  no  late  period  a  bishop  or  priest  was 
pronounced  free  by  the  mere  fact  of  his  ordina- 
tion. Slaves  that  anyhow  became  the  property  of 
churches,  as  they  often  did  by  legacy  or  gift, 
were  almost  invariably  set  free ;  and  slaves  were 
not  infrequently  bequeathed  to  churches,  with  an 
express  view  to  their  emancipation  under  conditions 
that  would  insure  to  them  sympathy,  protection, 
and  help.  At  an  early  period  it  became  discredit- 
able to  an  ecclesiastic  to  hold  slaves. 

The  Christian  clergy  from  the  very  first  dis- 
couraged the  vague  and  irregular  matrimonial 
unions  which  prevailed  among  slaves,  and  we  find 
before  Constantine's  time  tokens  equally  of  their 
strong  feeling  and  of  their  almost  utterly  inef- 
fectual action  in  this  behalf;  while  under  the 
Christian  emperors,  though  they  were  always  in 
advance  of  the  law,  the  law  followed  their  lead, 
until,  long  before  the  cessation  of  domestic  slavery, 
slave-marriage  was  under  the  same  legal  restraints 
and  sanctions  with  the  marriage  of  free  men  and 
women. 

As  regards  labor,  the  Christian  emperors  ex- 
tended to  the  slaves  the  same  prohibitions  that 
were  imposed  on  free  men.  Constantine  forbade 
all  labor  on  Sunday,  except   such   as   might   be 


GENERAL   EMANCIPATION.  315 

necessary  to  save  exposed  and  imperilled  crops 
and  fruit.  Valentinian  prohibited  labor,  also,  on 
Christmas,  on  Epiphany,  in  Holy  Week,  and  on 
the  festivals  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  At  the  same 
time,  under  directly  Christian  influence,  largely 
aided  by  the  legislation  which  it  prompted,  labor 
was  clothed  with  dignity  and  honor ;  industry  be- 
came respectable  among  free  men,  which  it  had 
long  ceased  to  be  in  Rome  and  its  dependencies ; 
arts,  trades,  and  manual  labor  in  agriculture,  were 
no  longer  regarded  as  menial,  and  the  slave  ceased 
to  be  degraded  by  industries  which,  in  the  earlier 
days  of  the  empire,  had  been  tokens  of  disgrace 
and  infamy. 

Thus,  in  many  and  diverse  ways  slavery  was 
ameliorated  long  before  it  ceased  to  be ;  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  slaves  and  the  free  was  grad- 
ually obliterated  ;  and  at  the  same  time  the  number 
of  slaves  was  constantly  decreasing,  till  about  the 
time  when  the  power  of  the  Church  reached  its 
culmination  the  last  vestiges  of  chattel-slavery  van- 
ish from  history,  and  the  great  curse  is  exorcised, 
the  crushing  burden  rolled  off  from  all  Christen- 
dom, to  re-appear  only  when  Christ  and  the  earth- 
spirit  are  in  conflict  for  supremacy  in  our  New 
World,  and  the  arm  of  the  Church  —  not  unready 
to  bear  part  in  the  struggle  —  is  too  feeble  to 
wield  its  power  across  the  intervening  Atlantic. 


316      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND   ROMAN  LAW. 

We  will  next  consider  the  action  of  Christianity 
on  the  Roman  law  as  to  the  sacredness  of  the  mar- 
riage covenant.  The  legal  liberty  of  divorce  on 
the  part  of  the  husband,  even  in  the  purest  days 
of  the  republic,  was  unlimited,  though  then  hardly 
ever  exercised.  As  Rome  grew  rich  and  luxuri- 
ous, divorces  became  frequent,  and  were  made  on 
the  most  frivolous  grounds.  Paulus  iEmilius, 
who  was  eminently  virtuous  in  the  estimation 
of  his  contemporaries,  divorced  his  confessedly 
blameless  and  excellent  wife  with  no  other  excuse 
than,  "  My  shoes  are  new  and  well  made,  yet  I 
must  change  them,  —  no  one  but  myself  knows 
where  they  pinch."  In  Cicero's  time,  divorce  had 
become  so  common  among  men  of  good  repute 
that  Cicero's  own  case  was  a  rare  one,  inasmuch 
as  he  could  give  plausible  reasons  for  divorcing 
his  thirty  years'  wife  and  the  mother  of  his  chil- 
dren, in  her  bad  temper,  her  extravagance,  and  her 
disposal  against  his  interest  of  some  separate  prop- 
erty of  her  own,  as  also  for  the  divorce  of  her  suc- 
cessor Publilia  in  her  lack  of  sympathy  with  him 
in  his  grief  for  the  death  of  his  daughter.  You 
are  all  familiar  with  the  story  —  too  disgusting  to 
be  repeated  in  its  details  —  of  Livia's  forced  di- 
vorce, to  be  married  to  Augustus  Caesar.  From 
his  time  onward  for  three  centuries,  no  husband 
whose    personal    endowments,    rank,    or   wealth 


DIVORCE,   IN  JUSTINIAN'S   CODE.        317 

made  him  an  object  of  desire  could  escape  the  in- 
trigues of  shameless  women  seeking  to  supplant 
his  wife  in  his  household.  Meanwhile  marriage 
cum  conventions  in  manum  (so  called),  the  only 
marriage  by  which  the  wife  became  legally  a  mem- 
ber of  the  husband's  family,  was  almost  disused, 
and  marriage  sine  conventione,  that  is,  without  a 
legal  change  of  the  wife's  family  relations,  gave 
her  the  same  right  of  divorce  which  the  husband 
had  always  possessed.  Accordingly,  wives  were 
on  the  watch  to  improve  their  condition ;  and  we 
read  of  women  who  reckoned  their  husbands  by 
years,  and  changed  them  as  often  as  the  munici- 
pal elections  came  round. 

This  freedom  of  divorce  was  bemoaned  and 
denounced  by  the  Christian  Fathers,  and  was  not 
tolerated  in  Christian  society ;  but  it  received  its 
first  legal  check  from  Constantine.  He  issued  an 
edict,  by  which  a  wife  could  obtain  divorce  from 
her  husband,  only  if  he  were  a  homicide,  a  magi- 
cian, or  a  violator  of  tombs,  whether  for  plunder 
or  with  sacrilegious  intent ;  and  a  wife  could  be 
divorced  only  if  she  were  an  adulteress,  a  dabbler 
in  the  black  art,  or  a  procuress.  Edicts  still  less 
favorable  to  divorce  were  issued  by  Honorius  and 
other  later  emperors ;  and  Justinian's  code  left  the 
law  of  divorce,  if  somewhat  less  rigid  than  that 
of    the    New    Testament,   still   in   a   much   more 


318      CHRISTIAN  ETI11CS  AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

healthy  condition  than  prevails  at  this  moment 
in  any  part  of  the  United  States.  In  all  the 
countries  of  Southern  Europe,  whose  codes  were 
founded  on  the  civil  or  Roman  law,  under  the 
growing  ascendency  of  the  Church,  the  law  of 
Justinian's  code  was  so  far  modified  as  to  make 
adultery  the  only  ground  of  divorce,  and  to  inca- 
pacitate the  divorced  husband  or  wife  from  form- 
ing new  matrimonial  relations. 

As  to  the  definition  of  the  degrees  of  kindred 
within  which  marriage  was  authorized,  I  know 
not  of  any  prohibitory  legislation  in  pre-Christian 
Rome;  but  custom  had  in  this  respect  followed 
the  leading  of  nature,  except  that  there  were  in- 
stances of  the  intermarriage  of  uncle  and  niece. 
But  the  Christian  emperors  very  early  made  the 
prohibited  degrees  of  the  Levitical  code  the  sub- 
ject of  positive  enactment. 

Another  important  department  of  legislation  is 
that  which  relates  to  the  patria  potestas  (so  called) ; 
that  is,  the  father's  power  over  the  child.  By 
the  old  Roman  law  this  power  was  unlimited, 
extending  even  to  the  child's  life.  Our  common 
phrase,  "  to  bring  up  "  a  child,  is  derived  from  the 
Latin  tollere,  to  "  lift  up  "  from  the  ground  or  the 
floor  ;  for  in  the  early  time  it  was  by  this  symbolic 
act,  or  its  omission,  that  the  father  signified  his 
determination  whether  the  new-born  child  should 


INFANTICIDE.  319 

live  or  die.  The  father,  so  long  as  he  lived,  had 
sovereign  power  over  his  child's  destiny,  services, 
earnings,  and  domestic  relations.  The  only  ex- 
ception was  that  of  the  peculium  castrense,  that 
is,  the  wages  of  military  service^  which  under  Au- 
gustus, and  not  earlier,  was  made  the  son's  own 
property  ;  and  this  exception  was  due,  not  to  any 
sense  of  the  fitness  that  men  in  their  full  maturity 
should  have  something  that  they  could  call  their 
own,  but  to  the  desire  to  enlist  larger  numbers  of 
native  Roman  citizens  in  the  army,  which  had  be- 
come to  a  dangerous  degree,  and  continued  to  be, 
for  the  most  part,  a  band  of  mercenaries  from 
remote  provinces. 

While  adult  children  might  still  continue  sub- 
ject to  a  father's  tyranny  till  they  themselves  were 
old  men,  the  practice  of  infanticide  remained  with- 
out legal  check  or  hinderance ;  and,  at  the  begin- 
ing  of  the  fourth  century,  Lactantius  speaks  of  it 
as  a  common  practice,  to  which  was  attached 
neither  penalty,  reproach,  nor  shame.  It  was  not 
till  near  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  that  the 
right  of  the  father  to  kill  his  adult  children  was 
legally  repealed,  though  we  find  no  mention  of  its 
exercise  after  the  reign  of  Nero ;  and  the  last  in- 
stance of  it  on  record,  was  one  in  which  the  father 
hardly  escaped  with  his  life  the  indignation  of  the 
public.     Until  near  the  close  of  the  third  century, 


320      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

a  father  might  sell  his  children,  of  any  age,  into 
slavery.  Diocletian  limited  this  right  to  the 
sale  of  new-born  children  by  parents  in  extreme 
penury.  Of  course  there  was  little  demand  in 
the  slave-market  for  slaves  of  so  very  tender  age. 
Children  had  previously  been,  to  a  very  consid- 
erable extent,  bred  for  the  slave-market ;  and  this 
edict  of  Diocletian  multiplied  largely  the  cases 
of  the  exposure  of  children  with  a  view  to  their 
perishing. 

In  this  whole  field  of  legislation,  Constantine 
was  a  vigorous  and  efficient  reformer.  He  issued 
the  first  edict,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  the  whole 
Gentile  world,  which  made  infanticide  a  crime  ; 
and  he  placed  it  as  to  penalty  on  the  same  footing 
with  any  other  form  of  murder.  He  also  enacted 
the  earliest  poor-law  on  record,  except  those  in  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures, — a  law  by  which  the  children 
of  parents  too  poor  to  support  them  were  provided 
with  food  and  clothing  from  the  public  treasury. 
He  also  extended  the  exemption  of  military  wages 
from  paternal  control  to  the  compensation  of  the 
numerous  functionaries  employed  in  the  imperial 
household ;  and  his  successors  enlarged  it  still 
further,  so  as  to  include  all  public  and  quasi  public 
charges,  whether  civil  or  ecclesiastical.  Constan- 
tine also  made  children  the  sole  heirs  of  their 
mother's   property,   which    had    previously   been 


LAWS  OF  1NUEEITANCE.  321 

merged  in  the  father's  estate.  Gratian  made  the 
children  of  a  deceased  wife  the  immediate  heirs  of 
their  maternal  grandparents.  Justinian  secured  to 
children  the  entire  control  of  whatever  property 
or  revenue  might  accrue  to  them  independently 
of  their  fathers,  limiting  the  father's  control  to 
such  property  as  might  have  come  to  the  child  by 
the  father's  gift,  which  he  was  at  liberty  to  reclaim 
or  control  at  his  pleasure. 

I  might  specify  in  this  connection  the  laws  of 
inheritance  and  succession,  whether  as  regards 
the  rights  and  limitations  of  testamentary  be- 
quest, or  the  disposal  of  the  property  of  intes- 
tates ;  but  it  would  involve  technicalities  better 
suited  to  a  law-school  than  to  a  general  audience, 
and  at  the  same  time  these  topics  seem  to  have  a 
less  directty  ethical  bearing  than  those  which  I 
have  brought  before  you.  Yet  they  have  an 
ethical  significance  and  value ;  and  in  this  entire 
branch  of  legislation,  wherever  principle  is  con- 
cerned, we  see  very  clearly  the  influence  of  Chris- 
tian ideas  as  to  domestic  relations,  and  as  regards 
the  mutual  rights  and  duties  of  kindred.  The 
old  Roman  law  of  succession  and  inheritance  was 
vitiated  throughout  by  the  ramifications  of  the 
father's  absolute  power  and  by  the  legal  non- 
entity of  women.  Under  Constantine  and  his 
successors  this  whole  department  of  law  was  pro- 


322     CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

gressively  modified,  so  as  to  invest  the  adult  son 
with  all  the  rights  of  property  that  belong  to 
manhood,  and  to  make  the  woman,  whether  virgin, 
wife,  or  widow,  capable  of  holding  and  trans- 
mitting property  on  an  equal  footing  with  the 
man.  There  can  be  no  question  that  in  all  matters 
relating  to  the  transmission  and  inheritance  of 
property,  the  countries  that  have  derived  their 
jurisprudence  from  Roman  sources  have  made .  the 
nearest  approach  which  legislation  has  anywhere 
made,  and  I  might  almost  say,  the  nearest  ap- 
proach that  mere  legislation  can  make,  to  the 
Christian  standard  of  right ;  and  in  England  and 
the  United  States  the  progress  of  law  in  this  entire 
department  has  consisted  chiefly  in  the  adoption 
of  principles  and  maxims  derived  from  the  civil 
or  Roman  law. 

It  is  on  account  of  the  perfectness  of  the  Roman 
law  as  compared  with  other  codes  and  systems, 
and  because,  as  I  said  in  a  former  lecture,  law 
has  the  moral  education  of  the  people  for  one 
of  the  most  important  of  its  functions,  that  I 
have  thought  fit,  in  a  course  of  ethical  lectures, 
to  show  in  this  conspicuous  instance  what  law 
owes  to  Christian  ethics.  There  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  the  Roman  law  derived 
from  Christianity  the  very  traits  in  which  con- 
sists its  pre-eminence,  its  perpetuity,  its  adapta- 


SOURCES   OF  LAW-REFORM.  323 

tion  in  principle  and  spirit  to  our  time  and  to  all 
time. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  Was  not  the  civil  law,  as 
matured  under  the  Christian  emperors,  the  natural 
and  inevitable  outcome  of  the  genius  of  the 
Roman  people,  as  a  people  from  early  time,  so  to 
speak,  addicted  to  law,  law-making,  and  (except 
at  revolutionary  epochs)  law-keeping?  I  answer, 
first,  that  the  Roman  people  had  ceased  to  give 
law  to  the  world,  and,  as  to  unmixed  nationality, 
had  ceased  to  be.  The  seat  of  the  Roman  Empire 
had  been  transferred  to  Constantinople,  which 
was  peopled  by  the  confluence  of  adventurers 
from  the  whole  civilized  world  and  beyond  it, 
among  whom  Roman  traditions  and  the  corre- 
sponding mental  and  moral  habitudes  had  but  a 
very  limited  currency.  In  the  second  place,  not 
one  of  the  law-reforming  emperors  was  of  Roman 
birth,  parentage,  or  lineage.  Constantine  and 
Justinian  were  both  born  on  the  eastern  coast  of 
the  Euxine  Sea,  and  the  others  were  of  various 
races  which  two  or  three  centuries  before  would 
have  been  accounted  as  barbarians  at  Rome. 

Then,  too,  the  reformation  of  law  took  place  in 
precisely  the  directions  in  which  Christian  thought, 
teaching,  and  writing  had  confessedly  led  the 
way.  The  Christian  Fathers,  including  the  apos- 
tolic Fathers  (so  called),  so  far  as  the  works  that 


324      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

bear  their  names  are  genuine,  laid  intense  stress 
on  the  equality  of  all  men  in  the  sight  of  God,  on 
the  inviolable  sacredness  of  the  marriage  cove- 
nant, and  on  the  relative  rights  and  obligations 
of  the  members  of  the  Christian  family  ;  and  their 
writings,  especially  those  of  Tertullian  and  Lac- 
tantius,  abound  in  lamentations  over  the  very 
evils  against  which  the  legislation  of  these  em- 
perors is  chiefly  aimed.  We  might  fill  a  volume 
with  exhortations,  denunciations,  pictures  of  soci- 
ety as  it  was,  and  as  it  ought  to  be,  under  the 
several  heads  which  I  have  specified  in  this  lec- 
ture. The  same  writers  are  also  mindful  of  the 
laborious  and  humble  callings  of  the  apostles,  and 
of  the  traditions  which  represented  their  Lord 
and  Master  as  having  himself  worked  in  Joseph's 
carpenter-shop  previously  to  his  baptism  and 
his  public  ministry ;  and  they  accordingly  always 
attach  dignity  and  honor  to  labor,  and  are  sedu- 
lously anxious  to  relieve  it  from  the  menial  associ- 
ations which  had  clung  to  it  in  the  classic  nations 
and  ages,  —  deeply  feeling,  as  we  are  prone  not 
to  feel,  that  such  associations  cast  shame  and 
reproach  on  the  Founder  of  their  religion  and 
on  his  foremost  followers.  The  Church  was  thus 
thoroughly  leavened  with  the  principles  which  em- 
bodied themselves  in  laws  as  soon  as  the  empire 
became  nominally  Christian.     It  must  be  remem- 


THE  CANON  LAW.  325 

bered,  too,  that  the  law-reforming  emperors, — 
Constantine  and  Justinian,  more  worthily  sur- 
named  Great  than  nine-tenths  of  the  sovereigns 
that  have  borne  that  appellation,  and  the  others, 
some  of  them  men  of  signal  administrative  ca- 
pacity,—  while  differing  widely  as  to  the  evidence 
which  they  gave  of  personal  piety,  were  all  of 
them  what  is  scornfully  called  "priest-ridden," 
and  priest-ridden  to  the  best  possible  purpose. 
Their  improved  laws  were  suggested  by  their 
ecclesiastical  advisers,  and  often  dictated  to  them 
with  the  exhibition  of  formidable  weapons  from 
the  well-stocked  arsenal  of  ecclesiastical  pains  and 
penalties. 

In  fact,  in  all  matters  that  could  be  common 
to  the  two,1  the  canon  law  and  the  civil  law  were 
identical  in  Justinian's  time,  the  latter  being  little 
more  than  an  authoritative  registry  and  promulga- 
tion of  the  former.  The  canon  law  subsequently 
became  encumbered  with  subtilties,  anomalies, 
and  absurdities,  due  in  part  to  the  growing  igno- 
rance and  incapacity  of  the  clergy,  in  part  to  the 
same  cause  that  is  now  constantly  creating  muni- 

i  This  statement  includes  laws  relating  to  marriage,  domes- 
tic relations,  wills,  and  all  the  matters  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  our  probate  courts.  There  was  a  body  of  canon  law  with 
reference  to  offences  strictly  ecclesiastical,  which  had  attained  a 
considerable  growth  before  Justinian's  time,  and  which  existed, 
and  in  great  part  still  exists,  independently  of  municipal  law. 


326      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

cipal  law  not  written  in  the  statutes,  namely,  the 
converting  of  particular  cases  into  precedents  of 
universal  application. 

It  may  be  objected  to  the  agency  which  I  have 
ascribed  to  Christianity  in  the  ethical  superiority 
of  the  Roman  law,  that  in  the  legal  writings  of  the 
great  jurists  prior  to  the  age  of  Constantine,  such 
as  Gaius,  Paulus,  Papinian,  and  Ulpian,  there  are 
to  be  found  many  traces  of  an  humane  and  phi- 
lanthropic spirit,  and  many  maxims  that  seem  to 
have  a  Christian  trend ;  and  yet  none  of  these 
men  are  known  or  supposed  to  have  been  Chris- 
tians. I  would  answer,  first,  that  several,  if  not 
all,  of  these  writers  were  Stoics ;  and  I  have  al- 
ready given  my  reasons  for  supposing  that  leading 
Stoics  under  the  empire  had  unconsciously,  or 
perhaps  consciously,  imbibed  ethical  notions  from 
Christian  sources.  In  the  next  place,  these  men 
were  not  legislators,  but  commentators,  without 
authority  when  they  wrote,  and  elevated  into  au- 
thority only  under  later  Christian  auspices.  We 
have  no  proof,  and  no  reason  to  believe,  —  on  the 
other  hand,  in  the  wording  of  Constantine's  edicts 
we  have  ample  reason  for  not  believing,  —  that 
the  maxims  of  these  writers  had  before  the  age  of 
Constantine  any  influence  in  the  administration 
of  law.  Still  further,  we  have  no  proof  that  some 
or  all  of  these  men  may  not  have  had,  and  it  is 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  ROMAN  LAW.       327 

intrinsically  probable  that  they  had,  actual  conver- 
sance with  Christian  teachers,  and  with  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures,  which,  after  the  middle  of  the 
second  century,  must  have  been  sufficiently  dif- 
fused and  circulated  to  attract  the  curiosity  and 
interest  of  cultivated  men.  Indeed,  Ulpian  says 
so  many  things,  not  only  of  a  Christian  type,  but 
even  in  a  Christian-like  style  and  manner,  that  we 
can  hardly  imagine  him  to  have  been  ignorant  of 
Christian  writers,  or  unfriendly  to  their  religion. 
Lactantius,  indeed,  speaks  of  a  certain  Domitius 
as  unfriendly  to  the  Christians  ;  and  Ulpian's  first 
name  was  Domitius.  But  that  cannot  have  been 
an  uncommon  name,  and  Lactantius  may  have 
been  speaking  of  some  other  man.  If  not,  all 
that  is  laid  to  the  charge  of  his  Domitius  is  the 
recital,  in  some  work  of  his,  of  certain  imperial 
rescripts  against  the'  Christians ;  and  this  cer- 
tainly does  not  imply  approval  of  them.  If  they 
were  a  part  of  the  municipal  law  of  his  time,  he 
could  not  have  left  them  unnoticed. 

We  have  reason,  then,  to  believe  that  Christian- 
ity was  a  chief  forming  element  in  the  civil  law  as 
shaped  under  the  early  Christian  emperors  into 
the  most  perfect  legal  structure  of  all  time, — a 
structure  which  has  long  outlived  the  empire  that 
gave  it  birth,  has  insured  the  rights  and  liberties 
of  nations  that  had  not  then  begun  to  be,  and  is 


328      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

destined  to  exert  an  extended  influence  for  ages 
yet  to  come. 

It  is  impossible  to  over-estimate  the  moral  power 
of  the  Roman  law  ill  creating  all  that  is  most  pre- 
cious in  modern  civilization.  The  civilization  of 
the  old  Roman  world  was  in  intense  need  of  re- 
generation. It  was  draining  the  life-blood  of  the 
nations  within  its  pale,  enervating  them,  even  de- 
pleting their  numerical  strength,  and  very  rapidly, 
too,  so  that  it  was  incursion  and  immigration  from 
races  that  had  till  of  late  been  deemed  almost  sav- 
age, that  kept  up  the  population  of  the  empire. 
The  dark  ages  were  inevitable,  because  the  oil 
that  fed  the  light  of  the  Old  World  was  burned 
out.  The  only  light  left  was  that  which  is  des- 
tined never  to  expire,  but  was  not  as  yet  far  above 
the  horizon.  Even  the  Christian  religion,  as  a 
religion,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  survived,  ex- 
cept as  the  wokian  in  the  Apocalypse  who  had  u  a 
place  prepared  of  God  for  her  in  the  wilderness." 
The  ritual  remained ;  and  there  was,  undoubtedly, 
the  true  apostolic  succession  that  never  ceased, 
though  hidden  in  the  fastnesses  of  the  Apennines, 
and  beyond  the  reach  of  papal  ban  or  sword.  But 
happily,  before  Christianity  had  lost  its  identity, 
its  ethics  were  embodied  by  the  great  imperial 
lawgivers.  Because  their  laws  were  Christian, 
the  Church  had  them  in  charge.     The  clergy  had 


777 J?  DARK  AGES.  329 

a  monopoly  of  such  scanty  intelligence  and  learn- 
ing as  remained ;  they  had  unlimited  power  over 
sovereigns  and  rulers ;  and  thus  the  great  princi- 
ples of  ethical  right  were,  for  the  most  part,  held 
in  reverence,  and  the  laws  founded  upon  them 
were  executed  as  regarded  the  people  at  large, 
though  immunity  from  them  could  often  be  pur- 
chased by  the  rich,  or  enforced  by  the  powerful. 
In  particular,  the  marriage  laws,  which  lie  at  the 
foundation  of  all  social  well-being,  were  held  with 
great  strictness  by  the  Church ;  and  dispensations 
from  them  were  so  costly,  and  involved  a  process 
so  long  and  tedious,  that  they  were  seldom  sought. 
Had  the  darkness  come  on  before  these  laws 
were  enacted,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  utter  depth 
of  depravity  into  which  the  world  would  have 
sunk,  almost  beyond  the  possibility  of  redemption. 
By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  homes  in  Christen- 
dom were,  during  the  (so  called)  dark  ages,  built 
after  the  Christian  model,  with  parents  united  in 
irrevocable  wedlock,  and  children  growing  up 
under  the  shelter  and  guidance  of  parental  love ; 
and  society  thus  ordered,  to  however  low  a  plane 
of  intelligence  it  may  have  fallen,  has  in  it  the 
prophecy  of  a  resurrection,  the  elements  of  prog- 
ress. In  fact,  during  that  period  there  was  a 
perpetual  growth  under  the  cloud.  Humane  prin- 
ciples and  maxims  were  taking  root  and  gaining 


330      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS   AND  ROMAN  LAW. 

strength;  the  spirit  of  honor  that  had  its  embodi- 
ment in  the  institutions  of  chivalry  was  nurtured 
and  cherished ;  respect  for  woman  became  a  per- 
vading and  ruling  sentiment ;  the  savage  laws  of 
Avar  were  ameliorated;  the  claims  of  conquered 
enemies  began  to  be  recognized,  and  mainly 
through  the  agency  of  Christian  ethics  embodied 
in  the  civil  law  the  world  that  emerged  from  ob- 
scurity with  the  foregleams  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation  showed  an  immense  advance  in  all 
the  elements  of  Christian  civilization  beyond  the 
world  that  had  passed  into  the  age-long  sleep. 

But  while  we  justly  attach  this  transcendent 
value  to  law,  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was 
expressly  religious  institutions  that  preserved  the 
law,  —  that  maintained  its  working-power  and  its 
place  in  the  reverence  of  the  general  mind.  There 
were  the  clergy,  in  all  the  orders  of  the  imposing 
hierarchy ;  there  were  the  mysterious  rites  that 
enforced  their  authority  by  the  powers  of  the 
world  to  come ;  there  was  the  fearful  array  of 
penance  and  punishment,  in  which  the  arm  of 
flesh  was  always  ready  to  strike  where  the  sword 
of  the  spirit  directed  and  aimed  the  blow. 

We  are  perhaps  too  prone  to  undervalue  mere 
religious  institutions,  but,  if  so,  wrongly.  In  the 
first  place,  they  never  are  mere  institutions. 
However  perverted  and  corrupted  they  may  be, 


JUSTINIAN'S  AIM  AS  A   LEGISLATOR.      331 

something  of  their  spirit  still  broods  over  them. 
Then,  too,  they  would  not  remain  in  being  were 
they  not  reverenced ;  and  reverence  itself  has  an 
ethical  value,  even  though  its  objects  be  dimly  ap- 
prehended. There  is,  also,  always  a  possibility  of 
revival  in  spirit  while  the  institutions  remain. 
There  is  a  hearth  on  which  to  light  the  fire.  But 
without  a  hearth,  how  shall  the  fire  be  built,  and 
how  shall  it  be  kept  burning? 

One  word  in  conclusion.  In  what  I  have  said 
about  the  Roman  law  as  more  nearly  perfect  than 
any  other  system,  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  it 
was  wholly  free  from  defects  and  faults.  There 
were  individual  enactments,  both  laws  and  penal- 
ties, that  belonged  to  a  less  enlightened  age  than 
ours.  But  what  I  mean  to  say  is,  that  in  its  fun- 
damental principles,  in  its  foremost  aims  and  in 
its  pervading  spirit,  it  left,  as  codified  by  Justin- 
ian, a  structure  of  law  that  needed  not  recon- 
struction in  any  essential  department  or  element, 
but  only  improvement  with  enlarged  culture,  and 
adaptation  to  altered  conditions.  Moreover,  while 
for  some  of  the  emperors  called  Christian  we 
must  say  less,  Justinian  was  a  firm  Christian  be- 
liever, and,  with  many  faults  of  character,  still 
manifestly  had  a  Christian  ideal  before  him  in  his 
legislation.  His  aim  was  to  embody  Christian 
ethics  in  the  laws  of  the  empire ;  and  Christianity 


332      CIIBISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  RdMAN  LAW. 

has  been  the  salt  that  has  preserved  the  civil  law, 
and  has  made  it  a  perennial  agency  in  public 
order  and  social  well-being.  The  work  was  slow ; 
but  there  was  no  slackening  or  retrograde  move- 
ment. Justinian  came  to  the  throne  about  two  cen- 
turies after  Constantine  commenced  his  career  as 
a  Christian  legislator.  Next  to  the  first  Christian 
century,  those  two  centuries  were  of  more  moment 
for  human  happiness  and  welfare  than  any  other 
period  in  the  world's  history.  They  gave  the 
world  its  first  specimen  of  laws  which  had  for 
their  foundation  the  principles  of  the  eternal 
Right,  —  principles  which  must  underlie  all  insti- 
tutions and  enactments  that  will  live  and  last, 
while  those  that  rest  on  any  other  foundation 
must  meet  the  fate  of  the  house  built  on  the  sand. 


INDEX. 


Abstinence,  when  a  duty,  134. 
when  wrong,  135. 
Alms,  public,  of  harmful  influence, 

126. 
Ambition,  when  beautiful,  229. 
Aristotle,  the  ethics  of,  227. 
Art,  beauty  in,  analogous  to  moral 

beauty,  221. 
Asceticism,  devoid  of  beauty,  232. 
Attention,  ethical  value  of,  17. 
Aurelius,  Marcus,  character  of,  295. 
"  Meditations  "  of, 

298. 
death  of,  299. 

Baptism,  why  to  be  observed,  42. 
Beauty,  moral,  defined,  220. 

in  character,  222. 
in  individual  acts,  224. 
self  -  government    es- 
sential to,  235. 
not  a  test  of  the  Right, 

244. 
its  own  beautifier,  247. 
Beneficence,  a  part  of  justice,  125. 

to  the  lower  orders  of 
being,  127. 
Bentbam,  ethical  system  of,  68. 
Brutes,  lack  of  the  moral  sense  in, 
263. 

Calvinism,  analogies  of,   with    Stoi- 
cism, 282  n. 
Cannibalism,  how  accounted  for,  89.    I 


Carlyle,  ridiculed  by  Spencer,  272. 
Casuistry,  defined,  209. 
Cato,  the  elder,  character  of,  196. 
Causation,  conception  of,  due  to  con- 
sciousness, 4. 
Character,  how  formed,  13. 

how  re-formed,  17. 
standard  of  the  Christian, 
215. 
Christianity,  influence  of,  on  Roman 

law,  323. 
Cicero,  ethics  of,  194. 

the  De  Officii*  of,  285. 
Conscience,  defined,  82. 

province  of,  83. 

not  an  active   principle, 

84. 
infallible,  85. 
how  far  capable  of  edu- 
cation, 87. 
universal,  88. 
relation  of,  to  law,  94. 
counterfeits  of,  101. 
growth  of,  106. 
according  to  the  hedonic 
theory,  258. 
Consciousness,  testimony  of,  valid,  8. 
testimony  of,  against 
hedonism,  275. 
Courage,  physical  and  moral,  129. 
Courtesy,  beauty  of,  237. 
sources  of,  241. 
in  speech,  242. 
333 


334 


INDEX. 


Coveting,  why  specially  forbidden  in 

the  Decalogue,  176. 
Customs,  standard  of,  152. 
vis  inertice  of,  153. 
duty  with  reference  to  right, 

160. 
duty    with     reference     to 
wrong,  only    by   excess, 
161. 
duty  with  reference  to  ab- 
solutely wrong,  162. 

Decalogue,  divine  origin  of  the,  165. 
completeness  of  the,  166. 
precepts    of     the,    sepa- 
rately considered,  167. 
Diogenes,  the  Stoic  philosopher,  285. 
Discourtesy,  sources  of,  239. 
Divorce,  growing  facility  of,  121. 
plea  for,  groundless,  122. 
among  the  Hebrews,  188. 
in  pagan  Rome,  316. 
under  the  Christian  emper- 
ors, 317. 

Epictetus,  character  of,  292. 
philosophy  of,  293. 
piety  of,  294. 
Epicurus,  philosophy  of,  67. 
Ethics,  Christian,  not  new,  192. 
perfect,  193. 
of  universal  valid- 
ity, 194. 
no    formal    system 

of,  200. 
the     fundamental 
principle  of,  201. 
positive     character 

of,  204. 
demanding     active 

duty,  205. 
supplying     the 
knowledge  of 
duty,  206. 
direct  action  of,  on 
the    conscience, 


Ethics,  Christian,  motive-power  of, 

213. 
Eucharist,  the,  why  to  be  observed, 

40. 
Evolution  -  theory,   religious   aspects 
of  the,  249. 
probability       o  f 

the,  231. 
two    classes    o  f 
disciples  of  the, 
252. 
ethics  of  the,  253. 
Expediency,  an    inadequate   ground 
of  right,  69. 
office  of,  75. 

Falsehood,  when  seemingly  expedi- 
ent, 71. 
in  extreme  cases,  73. 
Family,  the,  the  norm  of  the  state, 

175. 
Fanaticism,  never  beautiful,  280. 
Filial  piety,  enjoined    in  the  Deca- 
logue, 174. 
the  pre-requisite  of  na- 
tional well-being,  175. 
Fitness,  the  ground  of  right,  29. 
Fortitude,  defined,  127. 
Freedom,    human,    proved    by   con- 
sciousness, 15. 
human,  not  incompatible 
with  divine  foreknowl- 
edge, 18. 
human,    pre-supposed    in 
the  divine  influence  on 
the  soul,  20. 
human,  limited  under  low 
conditions    of    culture, 
24. 

God,  the  will  of,  not  a  ground   of 

right,  35. 
positive    commands    of,    why 

valid,  39. 
Growth,  a  principle,  139. 

Habits,  how  broken,  13. 


INDEX. 


335 


Habits,  created  by  rules,  148 

labor-saving  virtue  of,  150. 
of  thought  and  feeling,  152. 
Hebrews,  poor-laws  of  the,  178. 

marriage-laws  of  the,  183. 
polygamy  among  the,  187. 
law  of  divorce  of  the,  188. 
Hedonism,  defined,  265. 

negatived    by   conscious- 
ness, 267. 
Heredity,  power  of,  21. 

not  irresistible,  22. 
recognized    in    the    Deca- 
logue, 168. 
the  law  of,  beneficent  in  its 

effect,  169. 
illustrated    in    the    life  of 
Marcus  Aurelius,  296. 
Hobbes,  ethical  system  of,  68. 
Home,  created  by  Christianity,  199. 

Ideals,  objects  of  volition,  27. 
Ignorance,  sins  of,  33. 
Image-worship,  why  forbidden  in  the 

Decalogue,  168. 
Imprisonment  for  debt,  96. 
Infauticide,  lawful  in  pagan  Rome, 
319. 
made  a  capital  crime  by 
Constantine,  320. 
Inheritance,  laws  of,  321. 

Jesus  Christ,  the  exemplar  of  his  own 
ethical  system,  211. 
moral  beauty  of,  225. 
Jews,  in  Rome,  305. 
Justice,  defined,  119. 

Knowledge    of  the   Right,  discrimi- 
nated from  conscience,  92. 

Law,  relation  of,  to  conscience,  95. 
as  to  debts,  96. 
as  to  intoxicating  liquors,  98. 
as  to  crimes  of  violence  and  of 

lust,  99. 
ethical  character  of  the  Hebrew, 

191. 


Law,  perfectness  of  the  Roman,  322. 

the  canon,  325  n. 
Love,  a  principle,  141. 

Manners,  good,  a  part  of  good  mor- 
als, 135. 
an  element  of  moral 
beauty,  236. 
Miracles,  possible,  6  n. 
Moderation,  a  constituent  element  of 
moral  beauty,  236. 
the  law  of  good  manners, 
237. 
Morality,  independent  of  religion,  44. 
Motives,  office  of,  10. 

not  necessarily  determining 
conduct,  12. 
Mysticism,   annulling  moral  obliga- 
tion, 48. 
ethical  tendencies  of,  51. 

NeceBsarianism,  defined,  1. 

degrading  to  human 
nature,  2. 

prima  facie  case  in 
favor  of,  4. 

arguments  for,  ap- 
plicable to  God  us 
well  as  to  man,  6. 

Obstacles,  ethical  value  of,  128. 
Order,  defined,  131. 
in  place,  132. 

Paley,  ethical  philosophy  of,  65. 
Panaetius,  the  Stoic  philosopher,  285. 
Pantheism,  annulling    moral   obliga- 
tion, 52. 
two  types  of,  53. 
Parental  love,  according  to  the  he 

donic  theory,  2M. 
Passion,  never  beautiful,  228. 
Paternal  authority,  in  ancient  Rome, 
318. 
limited  under  the 
Christian    e  m  - 
perors,  320. 


336 


INDEX. 


Patience,  how  nourished,  130. 
Pentateuch,  authorship  of  the,  164. 
Philauthropy,   when  a    passion,  not 

beautiful,  234. 
Piety  towards  God,  a  part  of  justice, 

119. 
Plato's  Republic,  ethics  of,  195. 
Pleasure,   the    evolutionist    standard 
of  right,  250. 
according    to    the    Stoics, 
280. 
Plutarch,  character  of,  299. 
"  Lives  "  of,  300. 
Moralia  of,  301. 
essay  of,  on  "  The  delay  of 
the  Divine  Justice,"  302. 
Principles,  defined,  136. 

in  morals,  137. 
Prudence,  defined,  116. 
Punctuality,  a  duty,  132. 
Purity,  a  principle,  137. 

Quantity  of  being,  the  object  of  prov- 
idential discipline,  128. 

Religion,  hedonic  theory  of,  259. 
Reverie,  moral  power  of,  15. 
Right,  defined,  28. 

the  ground  of,  29. 
relative  and  absolute,  31. 
various    theories    as    to    the 
ground  of,  34. 
Rules,  moral,  founded  on  principles, 
141. 
use  of,  142. 

to    be    made    for   our- 
selves,   not    for  oth- 
ers, 143. 
not  to  be  changed  with 
circumstances,  144. 

Sabbath,  the,  a  law  of  nature,  170. 

necessary  for  religious 

culture,  171. 
ante-Hebrew  and  extra 

Hebrew,  172. 
how  to  be  observed,  173. 


Sanctimony,  discriminated  from  sanc- 
tity, 231. 
Selfish  theory  of  morals,  the,  defined, 
55. 
the,  exclud- 
ing obliga- 
tion, 56. 
grounds  for 
rejec  ting 
the,  57. 
the,  annul- 
ling   v  i  r- 
tue,  60. 
the,  destroy- 
ing   merit 
and    de- 
merit, 61. 
Self-seeking,  when  and  how  far  justi- 
fied, 79. 
Seneca,  character  of,  288. 

ethical  works  of,  291. 
Sin,  unified  in  Christian  ethics,  202. 
Slavery,  amoug  the  Hebrews,  182. 
in  Rome,  309. 
ameliorated  under  Constan- 

tine,  312.   + 
ameliorated  uuder  Justinian, 

313. 
vanishing  from  history,  315. 
Slaves,  Christian,  in  Rome,  306. 

influence  of,  307. 
Smith,  Adam,  ethical  theory  of,  45. 
Society,  progress  of,  157. 
Spencer,  sneers  of,  at  Carlyle,  272. 
Stoics,  ethics  of  the,  278. 

in  imperial  Rome,  288. 
Sunday,  why  to  be  observed,  42. 
Sympathy,  au  inadequate  ground  of 
right,  46. 

Temperance,  a  department  of  order, 
132. 
progress    of,    in    New 
England,  154. 

Usury,  among  the  Hebrews,  189. 
Utilitarianism,  the  two  forms  of,  55. 


INDEX. 


337 


Utilitarianism, 
power,  68. 


deficient    in    motive- 


Veracity,  as  tested  by  expediency,  71. 
obligatory  on  the  ground  of 
Intrinsic  right,  124. 
Virtu,  meaning  of,   in   the  Italian, 

110. 
Virtue,  Paley's  definition  of,  65. 

derivation  of  the  word,  109. 
various  meanings  of,  110. 
oneness  of,  111. 
division  of,  113. 
heroic,  269. 

Stoic  definition  of,  279. 
Virtues,  the  cardinal,  defined,  113. 

the  cardinal,  essential  to  one 

another,  115. 
the    passive,    characterized, 

197. 
the   passive,  the  aggressive 
power  of,  198. 


Virtues,  the  passive,  influence  of,  in 
home-life,  199. 
the  passive,  value  of,  in  so- 
ciety, 200. 

Virtus,  primitive  meaning  of,  110. 

Volitions,  collective,  13. 


War,  Hebrew  laws  concerning,  184. 

Xenophon,  the  biographer  of  Socra- 
tes, 195. 

Youth,  ethical  consciousness  of,  275. 
consecrated,  of  Marcus  Aure- 
lius,  295. 


Zeal,  religious,  a  substitute  for  con- 
science, 104. 
Zeno,  the  advocate  of  suicide,  194. 
character  of,  278. 


&   OF  TH S*^48 

IHIVEESITY] 


BOOKS  PUBLISHED  BY  LEE  &  SIIEPARD. 

"  Such  a  Book  as  I  should  like  to  see  in  Every  Family" 
Says  the  Superintendent  of  Public  Schools,  Boston,  of 

THE  HAND-BOOK  OF 

ENGLISH   LITERATURE. 

By  FRANCIS  H.  UNDERWOOD,  A.  M. 

Author  of  "  Hand-Book  of  American  Literature." 

Crown  8vo.    $2.50. 

"Winning    Golden    Opinions " 

Not  only  as  the  best  text-book  for  schools,  but  as  a  book  of  Elegant  Extracts 
from  the  whole  range  of  English  authors,  beginning  with  Chaucer  and  ending 
with  the  popular  writers  of  our  day.  The  selections  are  accompanied  by  brief 
Biographical  Sketches,  which  of  themselves  have  been  highly  commended 
as  models  of  condensation  and  brevity.     Says  a  critic,  — 

"It  is  so  fascinating  as  to  fetter  the  attention  of  the  general  reader,  and  stimulate  him  to 
make  a  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  his  mother  tongue." 

The  extent  of  ground  gone  over  is  immense,  and  the  arrangement  of  the 
various  kinds  of  information  given  is  made  in  the  most  convenient  manner. 
An  historical  introduction  gives  a  clear  and  succinct  account  of  the  origin  and 
development  of  the  English  language.  To  those  familiar  with  the  sources  of 
literary  wealth  the  reading  of  a  page  will  spur  the  memory  to  pleasant  recol- 
lections ;  and  for  others  who  have  neither  time  nor  opportunity  for  extensive 
reading,  a  pleasant  and  easy  way  is  given  for  acquiring  some  acquaintance  with 
many  literary  styles. 

JOf"  As  a  text-book  for  students,  it  is  undeniably  the  best  ever  published. 

"  Much  Superior  to  any  previous  Work  of  the  Kind" 
Is  the  Universal  Verdict  on 

THE  HAND-BOOK  OF 

AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

By  FRANCIS   H.   UNDERWOOD,  A.  M. 

Crown  8vo.    #2.50. 

A  Complete  List  of  American  Authors, 

With  specimens  of  their  best  efforts,  covering  a  period  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years,  filling  over  six  hundred  pages  of  prose  and  poetry,  giving  as 
preface,  a  Biographical  Sketch  of  the  writer,  and  ranging  over  an  almost 
infinite  variety  of  subjects.  The  Biographical  Sketches  are  immeasurably 
superior  in  value  to  anything  of  the  kind  heretofore  published.  They  are 
admirable  in  their  condensation,  presenting  in  a  nutshell,  as  it  were,  tfie  points 
and  peculiarities  of  the  different  minds,  the  complete  portraiture  of  which  is 
admirably  proven  in  the  selections  which  follow.  These  make  the  book  a  Man- 
ual of  American  Literature  for  families  and  the  public,  as  well  as  a 

Text-Book  for  High  Schools. 

It  is  a  book  in  which  there  is  a  wider  range  of  reliable  information  with  re- 
gard to  the  men  WHO  have  mads  our  literature,  and  their  specialties 
of  achievement,  than  can  be  obtained  from  any  other  source. 


{fCT  Sold  by  all  Booksellers  and  Newsdealers. 

LEE   &   SHEPARD    Publishers,  Boston. 


Lee  and  Shepard's  Popular  Handbooks. 

Price,  each,  in  cloth,  60  cents,  except  when  other  price  is  given. 

Exercises  for  the  Improvement  of  the  Senses.  For  Young  Chii. 

dren.    By  Horace  Grant,  author  of  "  Arithmetic  for  Youug  Children." 
Edited  by  Willard  Small. 

Hints  On  Language  in  connection  with  Sight-Reading  and  Writing  in 
Primary  and  Intermediate  Schools.  By  S.  Arthur  Bent,  A.M.,  Super- 
intendent of  Public  Schools,  Clinton,  Mass. 

The  Hunter's  Handbook.  Containing  lists  of  provisions  and  camp 
paraphernalia,  and  hints  on  the  fire,  cooking  utensils,  etc. ;  with  approved 
receipts  for  camp-cookery.    By  "  An  Old  Hunter." 

Universal  Phonography;  or,  Shorthand  by  the  "Allen  Method."  A 
self  instructor.    By  G.  Or.  Allen. 

Hints  and  Helps  for  those  who  "Write,  Print,  or  Read.  By  B.  Drew, 
proof-reader. 

Pronouncing  Handbook  of  Three  Thousand  Words  often  Mispro- 
nounced.   By  R.  Soule  and  L.  J.  Campbell. 

Short  Studies  of  American  Authors.    By  Thomas  Wentworth 

HlGGINSON. 

The  Stars  and  the  Earth  J  or,  Thoughts  upon  Space,  Time,  and  Eter- 
nity.   With  an  introduction  by  Thomas  Hill,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Handbook  of  the  Earth.     Natural  Methods  in  Geography.    By  LouiPA 
Parsons  Hopkins,  teacher  of  Normal  Methods  in  the  Swain  Free  Schoo 
New  Bedford. 

Natural-History  Plays.    Dialogues  and  Recitations  for  School  ExhibJ 

tions.    By  Louisa  P.  Hopkins. 
The  Telephone.    An  account  of  the  phenomena  of  Electricity,  Magne 

tism,  and  Sound,  with  directions  for  making  a  speaking-telephone.    Bj 

Professor  A.  E.  Dolbear. 

Lessons  on  Manners.   By  Edith  e.  Wiggin. 

Water  Analysis.  A  Handbook  for  Water-Drinkers.  By  G.  L.  Aus- 
tin, M.D. 

Handbook  of  Light  Gymnastics.  By  Lucy  B.  Hunt,  instructor  in 
gymnastics  at  Smith  (female)  College,  Northampton,  Mass. 

The  Parlor  Gardener.  A  Treatise  on  the  House-Culture  of  Ornamental 
Plants.    By  Cornelia  J.  Randolph.    With  illustrations. 

Whirlwinds,  Cyclones,  and  Tornadoes.    By  William  Morris 

Davis,  Instructor  in  Harvard  College.    Illustrated. 

Practical  Boat-Sailing.  By  Douglas  Frazar.  Classic  size,  $1.00 
With  numerous  diagrams  and  illustrations. 

Mistakes  in  "Writing  English,  and  How  to  Avoid  Them. 
For  the  use  of  all  who  Teach,  Write,  or  Speak  the  language.  By 
Marshall  T.  Bigei.ow. 

Warrington's  Manual.  A  Manual  for  the  Information  of  Officers 
and  Members  of  Legislatures,  Conventions,  Societies,  etc.,  in  the  practical 
governing  and  membership  of  all  such  bodies,  according  to  the  Parlia- 
mentary Law  and  Practice  in  the  United  Stales.  By  W.  S.  Robinson 
(  Wavrivgton). 


Lee  and  Sheparfs  Popular  Handbooks. 

Price,  each,  in  cloth,  60  cents,  except  when  other  price  is  given. 
Forgotten    Meanings;   or  an  Hour  with  a  Dictionary.     By  Alfrbd 
Waites,  author  of  Historical  Student's  Manual. 

Handbook  of  Elocution  Simplified.  By  Walter  K.  Fobes,  with 
an  Introduction  by  George  M.  Bakek. 

Handbook  of  English  Synonyms.  With  an  Appendix,  showing  the 
Correct  Use  of  Prepositions;  also  a  Collection  of  Foreign  Phrases.  By 
Loomis  J.  Campbell. 

Handbook  of  Conversation.  Its  Faults  and  its  Graces.  Compiled  by 
Andrew  P.  Peabody,  D.D.,  LL.D.  Comprising:  (1)  Dr.  Peabodyb 
Address;  (2)  Mr.  Trench's  Lecture;  (3)  Mr.  Parry  Gwynne's  "A 
Word  to  the  Wise;  or,  Hints  on  the  Current  Improprieties  of  Expression 
in  Reading  and  Writing;  "  (4)  Mistakes  and  Improprieties  of  Speakiag 
and  Writing  Corrected. 

Handbook  cf  Punctuation  and  other  Typographical  Matters.  For 
the  Use  of  Printers,  Authors,  Teachers,  and  Scholars.  By  Marshall  T. 
Bigelow,  Corrector  at  the  University  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Handbook  of  Blunders.  Designed  to  prevent  1,000  common  blunders 
in  writing  and  speaking.  By  Harlan  H.  Ballard,  A.M.,  Principal  of 
Lenox  Academy,  Lenox,  Mass. 

Broken  English.  A  Frenchman's  Struggle  in  the  English  Language. 
Instructive  as  a  handbook  of  French  conversation.  By  Professor  E.  C. 
Dubois. 

Beginnings  with  the  Microscope.  A  working  handbook  containing 
simple  instructions  in  the  art  and  method  of  using  the  microscope,  and  pre- 
paring articles  for  examination.    By  Walter  P.  Manton. 

Field  Botany.  A  Handbook  for  the  Collector.  Containing  instructions 
for  gathering  and  preserving  Plants,  and  the  formation  of  an  Herbarium. 
Also  complete  instructions  in  Leaf  Photography,  Plant  Printing,  and  the 
Skeletonizing  cf  Leaves.    By  Walter  P.  Manton. 

Taxidermy  without  a  Teacher.  Comprising  a  complete  manual  of 
instructions  for  Preparing  and  Preserving  Birds,  Animals,  and  Fishes,  with 
a  chapter  on  Hunting  and  Hygiene;  together  with  instructions  for  Preserv- 
ing Eggs,  and  Making  Skeletons,  and  a  number  of  valuable  recipes.  By 
Walter  P.  Manton. 

In*ects.  How  to  Catch  and  how  to  Prepare  them  for  tho  Cabinet.  A 
Manual  of  Instruction  for  the  Field-Naturalist.    By  W.  P.  Manton. 

"Whot  is  to  be  Done?  A  Handbook  for  the  Nursery,  with  Useful 
Hints  for  Children  and  Adults.    By  Robert  B.  Dixon,  M.D. 

Handbook  of  "Wood  Engraving.  With  practical  instructions  in 
the  art,  for  persons  wishing  to  learn  without  an  instructor.  By  William 
A.Emerson.    Illustrated.     Price  $1.00. 

Five-Minute   Recitations.    Selected  and  arranged  by  Walter  K. 

FOBES. 

Five-Minute  Declamations.  Selected  and  arranged  by  Walter 
K.  Fobes. 

Five-Minute  Readings  for  Young  Ladies.    Selected  and  adapted 

by  Walter  K.  Fobes. 
Educational   Psychology.     A  Treatise  for  Parents  and  Educators. 

By  Louisa  Parsons  Hopkins. 
The  Nation  in  a  Nutshell.     A  Rapid  Outline  of  American  History. 

By  George  Makepeace  Towle. 

Sold  by  all  booksellers,  and  sent  by  mail,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  price. 

LEE   AND   SHEPARD,   Publishers,   Boston. 


WHAT    INTERESTS      IS     REMEMBERED." 


YOUNG    FOLKS' 

History  of  the  United  States. 

By  THOMAS  WENTWORTH   HIGGINSON. 


Small  quarto,  fully  illustrated.    Price  $1.20  net. 


b       J=  =>  From  J.  V.  Jackman,  Master  of  West  Schools,  Marlborough, 
§        a  °>  Mass. 

\       .c-o 

•*«        v  jj  "I   have  used   Higginson's  '  Young  Folks'  History  ot   the 

cq         p  <n  United  States '  ever  since  its  first  appearance,  and  I  am  satisfied 

v  that  it  is  the  best  text-book  on  the  subject  that  has  ever  been 

^       •S*S  printed- 

.2  S:-  "1  have  never  yet  seen  a  pupil  that  found  it  tiresome,  nor  has 

^        *    t^"o  any  pupil   asked   to  be   allowed    to   drop   the   study  of  history 

"*>  jj     £  -°  JB  since  we  began  to  use  it.     Could  more  be  said  in  favor  of  a  text- 

Jl    ViV.'k  book?" 


*$ 


S  g 


Xr£  - 


M' 


From  B.   B.   Russeix,  Master  of  Grammar  School,  Law- 
rence, Mass. 


c> 


u1^  fa     i3            "We  have  used   Higginson's   'Young  Folks'  History'  for 

*•>  b/)—'  5>  some  time  with  satisfaction.      The   style  is  so  interesting  that 

-  I  £  o  u  the  study  becomes  a  pleasure,  and  pupils  are  led  to  read   the 

'O"?  o"5t3  heavier  works  by  the  thirst  engendered   by  the  study  of   this 

.3  >-">§  book." 

W  -    S«. 

j,.  *c  |  2  From  L.  F.  Warren,  Master  of  Grammar  School,  Newton, 

g  S  1-8                                                      Mass. 

»  "StP-^            "We  have  used  Higginson's  'Young  Folks'  History  of  the 

j3?"l:  United  States  '  in  our  grammar  schools  for  some  time,  and  with 

S  ?  I  rt  very  satisfactory  results. 

5  S  -ZJ2            "The  pupils  readily  obtain  a  good  knowledge  of  the  history 

k,  rq  'g,  of  our  country  by  using  this  valuable  work  as  the  text-book." 


w  w 

**1 

$   3" 

3 

5  8    5 

1 

O 

c  <»  r: 

f^S" 

w 

»  g  o 

n 

ES-C 

E 

o 

Il° 

ft  (A 

^  *- 

|is 

Q  o  w" 

3^3 

^ra 

-US 

,^ 

-S'o4 

3   i 

I 

M   O 

5** 

rj 

«<Tw 

"  3 

»  a 
3  § 

I 

&.§ 

<* 

The  '  History '  is  meeting  with  unprecedented  success  in  the  large 
cities.  It  has  been  adopted  as  the  text-book  in  United-States 
History  for  all  the  schools  of  the  city  of  Boston.  It  has  also  been 
adopted  for  use  in  the  public  schools  in  NEW  YORK,  BROOK- 
LYN, JERSEY  CITY,  NEWARK,  PATERSON,  PITTS- 
BURG, and  cities  and  towns  in  every  part  of  the  country. 

#*  ^Copies  furnished  for  examination  to  teachers  on  receipt  of  $i. 


LEE   AND  SHEPARD,  Publishers, 

No.  10  Milk   Street,  Boston. 


HOW  SHALL  MY  CHILD  BE  TAUGHT? 

Practical  Pedagogy; 
Or,  The  Science  of  teaching  Illustrated. 

BY 

LOUISA    PARSONS    HOPKINS. 

12mo.    Cloth.    $1.50. 

The  papers  contained  in  this  volume  were  originally  published  in  the  "  Primary 
Teacher,"  and  attracted  a  great  deal  of  attention  for  the  practical  views  advanced. 
"  The  Boston  Herald  "  says, — 

"  Mrs.  Louisa  P.  Hopkins  has  made  a  careful,  practical  study  of  the  science  of 
teaching,  and  her  book  will  be  of  the  greatest  service  to  those  who  are  engaged 
in  the  tasks  of  primary  teaching.  Hhe  is  less  didactic  than  experimental  in  her 
methods;  but  the  points  which  she  makes  are  those  that  lead  inevitably  to  suc- 
cess, because  they  have  been  proved  in  the  schoolroom,  and  have  the  authority 
of  the  great  schoolmasters  of  modern  times.  The  secret  of  Mrs.  Hopkins's  suc- 
cess lies  in  the  following  of  the  natural  laws  of  education.  These  are  laws  of 
mental  action,  when  the  mind  is  free  to  act  under  the  impulse  of  play  instead 
of  taskwork.  The  method  cannot  be  reduced  to  rule;  it  is  the  method  of  the 
live  teacher,  who  feels  with  the  child,  and  guides  and  inspires  his  mental  action. 
All  the  questions  with  which  the  primary  teacher  has  to  deal  are  here  illustrated 
iu  a  practical  way.  The  motherliness  of  Mrs.  Hopkins's  plan  of  teaching  is  a 
noticeable  feature  of  her  instructions.  The  book  abounds  in  suggestions  which 
mothers  and  teachers  will  rind  of  great  helpfulness  in  dealing  with  the  young. 
There  is  more  truth  as  to  right  methods  of  education  in  this  little  book  than  can 
elsewhere  be  found  in  any  other  work  of  its  kind.  It  deals  with  principles 
which  should  be  in  operation  in  every  home  and  school,  and  its  careful  study  by 
young  teachers  will  save  them  mauy  disastrous  mistakes  in  the  first  years  of  their 
service." 


EDUCATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY: 

A  Treatise  for  Parents  and  Educators. 

BY 

LOUISA    PARSONS    HOPKINS, 

Author  of  "Natural  History  Plays,"  "Handbook  of  the  Earth,"  etc. 

Cloth.    50  cents. 

The  following  extracts  from  letters  to  the  publishers  show  with  what  favor  the 
book  is  received  :  — 

Accept  my  thanks  for  the  copy  of  Mrs.  Hopkins's  "Educational  Psychology," 
which  you  had  the  kindness  to  send  me.  The  work  is  one  of  great  merit.  The 
successive  chapters  give  an  exhaustive  division  of  the  ground  which  the  treatise 
is  intended  to  cover;  and  that  ground  is  so  thoroughly  covered  as  to  leave  no 
blank  or  deficiency.  The  topics  presented  are  of  prime  interest  and  moment; 
the  statements  and  reasonings  are  sound,  clear,  and  self-evidencing;  and  the 
volume  is  adapted  to  render  educational  service  of  the  highest  value,  —  such  as 
parents  and  teachers  need,  and  are  iu  large  numbers  prepared  to  welcome  and  to 
make  availing.     I  am,  gentlemen, 

Very  truly  yours, 
Cambridge,  Aug.  11, 1886.  A.  P.  PEABODV. 

The  book  you  sent,  "  Educational  Psychology,"  is  written  with  uncommon 
discrimination  and  ability,  —  much  condensed,  and  yet  clear. 

Will  you  please  convey  my  congratulations  to  the  author? 

Very  truly  yours, 
Williams  College,  Aug.  4,  1886.  MARK  HOPKINS. 


LEE  AND  SHEPARD,   Publishers,   BOSTON, 


AIDS  TO  EDUCATION. 


Hand- Books  of  English  Literature.     For  the  use  of  High  Schools,  for  Private 

Students,  and  for  General  Readers.     By  Francis  H.  Underwood,  A.M. 
British  Authors;    Cloth,  $2.50. 
American  Authors;    Cloth,  $2.50. 

Pronouncing  Hand-Book  of  Three  Thousand  Words  often  Mispronounced,  and 
of  Words  as  to  which  a  choice  of  Pronounciation  is  allowed.  By  Richard 
Soule  and  Loomis  J.  Campbell.    Cloth,  60  cents;    School  Edition,  35  cents. 

Bacon's  Essays.  With  Annotations.  By  Archbishop  Whately.  Students' Edition, 
containing  a  Preface,  Notes  and  a  Glossarial  Index.     By  F.  F.  Heard.     $2.50. 

Art;  its  Laws  and  the  Reasons  for  Them.  Collected, considered  and  arranged 
for  General  and  Educational  purposes.  By  Samuel  P.  Long.     $2.00. 

Manual  of  Bible  Selections  and  Responsive  Exercises.  For  Public  and 
Private  Schools  of  all  grades,  Sabbath  and  Mission,  and  Reform  Schools,  and 
Family   Worship.     By  Mrs.  S.  B.  Perry.    $1.00. 

The  Art  of  Projecting.  By  Prof.  A.  E.  Dolbear.  A  Manual  of  Experimenta- 
tion in  Physics,  Chemistry  and  Natural  History,  with  the  Porte-Lumiere  and 
Magic  Lantern.     With  numerous  Illustrations.     $1.50. 

The  Telephone.  By  Prof.  A.  E.  Dolbear.  An  account  of  the  Phenomena 
of  Electricity,  Magnetism  and  Sound.     Illustrated.     75  cents. 

Arithmetic  for  Young  Children.  By  Horace  Grant.  American  Edition, 
edited  by  Willard  Small.     Cloth,  35  cents. 

A  Manual  of  English  Pronounciation  and  Spelling.  Containing  Alphabetical 
Vocabulary  of  the  Language.     By  R.  Soule  and  W.  A.  Wheeler.     $1-50. 

Works  of  Virgil.  Translated  into  English  Prose,  with  an  Essay  on  the  English 
Translators  of  Virgil,  by  Prof.  John  Conington,  late  of  Oxford  University. 
Edited  by  John  Addington  Symonds.    Cloth,  $2.00. 

A  Selection  of  English  Synonymes.     By  Archbishop  Whately.    $i.oo. 

Latin  School  Series.  Selections  from  Latin  Classic  Authors.  With  Notes  and  a 
Vocabulary.  By  Fkancis  Gardner,  A.  M.  Gay  and  A.  H.  Buck,  Masters  of 
the  Boston  Latin  School. 

Phoedrus,  Justin.  Nepos.     $1.25. 

Caesar,  Curtius,  Ovid.     $1.50. 

Getting  to  Paris.  A  Book  of  Practical  French  Conversation.  By  Francis  S. 
Williams,  A.M.     $1.50.     Same  in  two  parts ;   each,  $1.00. 

The  Historical  Student's  Manual.     By  Alfred  Waites.    8vo.    Cloth,  75  cents. 

Mother- Play.  By  Frederick  Froebel.  Translated  fiom  the  German  by  Miss 
Jarvis  and  Miss  Dwight.  With  50  full-page  Illustrations,  and  a  number  of 
German  Kindergarten  songs  with  English  words.     $2.00. 

Reminiscences  of  Froebel.  By  Baroness  Marenholtz-Buelow.  Translated 
by  Mrs.  Horace  Mann.  With  a  Biographical  Sketch  of  Froebel.— By  Miss 
Emily  Shireff.    $1.50. 

Primer  of   Design.     By  Charles  A.  Barry.     75  cents  net;  by  mail,  90  cents. 

Model  and  Object  Drawing.     By  Charles  A.  Barry.    50  cents. 

***  Sold  by  all  Booksellers  and  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  price.     Special  Terms 
to  Schools  and  Teachers. 

LEE    AND    SHEPARD,  Publishers,  Boston. 


By  James  Freeman  Clarke. 


GO  UP  HIGHER; 

OR,    RELIGION    IN    COMMON    LIFE. 

Price,  $1.50. 

The  Boston  Journal  says  of  the  thirty  discourses  contained  in  the  book .' 

*'  They  preach  a  sunny,  practical,  and  unselfish  religion,  such  as  is  calculated 
to  sweeten  and  ennoble  life;  and  their  readers  will  not  be  restricted  within  any 
sectarian  limits." 


THE  HOUR  WHICH  COMETH  AND  NOW  IS. 

Price,  $1.50. 

The  reputation  of  the  author  as  an  able  and  eloquent  divine  will  render  his 
writings  acceptable  to  those  of  his  school  of  religious  thought,  as  well  as  to  others 
whose  views  of  Christianity  are  not  confined  to  one  strict  faith. 


By  Robert  Collyer. 


THE    SIMPLE    TRUTH. 

A  Home  Book.      Gilt,  $1.00. 

"Ten  gracefully  written  papers,  of  which  the  first,  on  '  Growing  Old  Together,' 
may  be  taken  as  a  type  of  the  whole.  They  present  in  earnest  language  the 
attractions  which  every  Christian  home  should  possess,  and  are  calculated  to  win 
the  reader  to  efforts  after  the  attainment  of  so  charming  an  ideal." — Presbyterian 
Banner. 


THE  LIFE  THAT  NOW  IS, 

NATURE  AND  LIFE, 

A  MAN  IN  EARNEST, 

Price,  $1.50  each. 

"The  author  of  these  volumes  is  the  master  of  a  simple  and  graceful  style;  his 
thought  is  always  interesting.  Few  men  keep  at  a  safer  distance  than  he  does  from 
dull  abstractions,  and  there  is  a  directness,  freshness  and  felicity  in  his  frequent 
illustrations  which  is  quite  remarkable.  'There  is  not  a  little  in  these  volumes 
which  is  eminently  sensible,  practical  and  healthful." — Congregationalist,  Boston. 


Sold  by  all  Booksellers  or  sent  by  mail,  postpaid,   on    receipt  of  price, 

LEE  AND  SHEPARD,  PUBLISHERS,  BOSTON. 


THOUGHTFUL   BOOKS 


RESURGIT: 

HYMNS  AND  SONGS  OF  THE  RESURRECTION. 

Collected  and  edited,  with  Notes,  by  Frank  Foxcroft,  of  the  editorial  staff  of  the 
Boston  Journal,  with  an  introduction  by  Rev.  Andrew  P.  Peabody,  D.D. 
Richly  bound  in  cloth,  gilt  top,  $2.00. 

' '  This  beautiful  volume  consists  of  Easter  Hymns,  drawn  from  many  languages, 
and  is,  beyond  all  question,  the  finest  work  of  the  kind  that  has  yet  been  published." 
—  Christian  at  Work, 

THE  TRUE  STORY  OP  THE  EXODUS  OF  ISRAEL, 

TOGETHER   WITH    A   BRIEF   VIEW    OF    MONUMENTAL    EGYPT. 

Compiled  from  the  work  of  Dr.  Henry  Brugsch-bey.  Edited  with  an  Introduc- 
tion and  Notes  by  Francis  H.  Underwood.     Cloth,  wiih  Map,  $1.50. 

"  The  vast  age  of  this  civilization,  the  many  points  of  resemblance  between  it 
and  modern  modes  of  life,  its  intimate  connection  with  the  early  history  of  the 
I-raeliies,  and  the  wonderful  developments  which  recent  investigation  and  study 
have  brought  forth  in  regard  to  the  dead  and  buried  and  long-lost  period  of  man- 
kind's history,  all  serve  to  invest  it  with  a  fascination  which  does  not  diminish  as 
we  read."  v  -Herald,  Utica. 

THE  UNITY  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT: 

A  Synopsis  of  the  First  Three  Gospels,  and  of  the  Epistles  of  St.  James,  St.  Jude, 
St.  Peter,  St.  Paul ;  to  which  is  added  a  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  (being  the  substance  of  three  lectures).  By  Frederick  Denison 
Maurice.    American  Memorial  Edition.     Price,  $2.50. 

"  It  is  full  of  rich,  suggestive,  quickening  and  productive  thought,  and  of  truths 
that  ought  to  have  the  stress  the  author  here  gives  them." — Lutheran  Quarterly 
Review. 

THE  KEYS  OF  SECT; 

Or,  The  Church  of  the  New  Testament,  compared  with  the  Sects  of  Modern  Chris- 
tendom. By  Julian  M.  Sturtevant,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Ex-President  of 
Illinois  College.    Price,  $1.75. 

w  Few  men  are  so  well  prepared  as  Rev.  Dr.  Sturtevant  to  compare  intelli- 
gently and  judiciously  the  Church  of  the  New  Testament  with  the  sects  of  Modern 
Christendom,  and  it  is  evident  that  he  has  put  his  best  work  into  this  book." — 
Golden  Rule. 

DEAN  ALFORD'S  GREEK  TESTAMENT. 

4  volumes.     Price,  $30.00. 


DEAN  ALFORD'S  NEW  TESTAMENT  FOR  ENGLISH  READERS. 

4  volumes.     Price,  $16.00. 


LEE  AND  SHEPARD,  PUBLISHERS,  BOSTON. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


m  22645 


